Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines (kankhā); Ven. Ñanamoli, Discourse Setting Rolling the Wheel of Truth
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| Buddhist novices or samaneras (wellhappypeaceful.com) |
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| Monastic doll, Thailand (ChristyB30/flickr) |
"Doubt" (kankhā) may be either an intellectual uncertainty, or it may be a psychologically detrimental [persistent] skepticism.
The latter may manifest as wavering indecision, which impedes progress on the path. Or it may persist as negative skepticism, which is worse than indecision.
Only this detrimental skeptical doubt (called vicikicchā) should be rejected and replaced. [This can be accomplished by cultivating confidence, faith, or saddha]. It is either useless, harmful, or very karmically unwholesome. It paralyzes thinking and hinders inner development. [It is one of the Five Hindrances to meditation and enlightenment.]
Reasoned, critical doubt in dubious matters [when it leads to investigation] is to be encouraged.
The 16 doubts enumerated in the sutras (e.g., MN 2 or Middle Length Discourses, second sutra) are the following:
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| Wondering and wondering would keep one revolving in fruitless doubt (Nyanamoli) |
- Have I been in the past [in past lives]?
- Have I not been in the past?
- What have I been in the past?
- How have I been in the past?
- From what state into what state did I change in the past?
- Shall I be in the future?
- Shall I not be in the future?
- What shall I be in the future?
- How shall I be in the future?
- From what state into what state shall I change in the future?
- Am I?
- Am I not?
- What am I?
- How am I?
- From whence has this being come?
- Where will it go?"
The way to confidence
Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly
Four ways of developing confidence and wisdom are also enumerated throughout the texts. For example, in the Buddha's first discourse ("Turning the Wheel of the Dharma," SN 56.11, see below), he focused on Four Ennobling Truths:
- What is suffering?
- What is the cause of suffering?
- What is the cessation of suffering?
- What is the way to the cessation of suffering?
These contemplations, particularly when undertaken immediately after emerging from the purifying meditative-absorptions (jhanas) are a source of progress: They lead to direct knowledge, to liberating insight, to complete emancipation (nirvana). They are ennobling inasmuch as they lead to noble attainments.
In that case, What is this thing we translate as "suffering," a translation that leads to so much confusion and debate about whether or not "all conditioned existence is suffering"? The Buddha defines the technical term in the following sutra. We try to avoid confusion by translating the very broad Sanskrit/Pali term dukkha as "disappointment" or "unsatisfactory." For all conditioned existence is unsatisfactory.
The True Wheel
Ven. Ñanamoli Thera, Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Discourse Setting Rolling the Wheel of Truth (SN 56.11). Alternate translations by Harvey and Ven. Piyadassi
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| The Buddha delivering the first sutra or "sermon" to the five ascetics (and countless devas) in the Deer Park, in the suburbs of ancient Varanasi, India |
Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Benares in the Deer Park at Isipatana (the "Resort of Seers"). There he addressed the group of five ascetics [his former companions prior to his enlightenment].
"These two extremes ought not to be cultivated by one gone forth from the household life. What are the two? There is devotion to indulgence of pleasure in the objects of sensual desire, which is inferior, low, vulgar, ignoble, and leads to no good. And there is devotion to self-torment [self-mortification, severe asceticism, insane austerities as distinct from the 13 Sane Ascetic Practices], which is painful, ignoble, and leads to no good.
"The middle way discovered by a Tathagata ["Wayfarer," Welcome One," "Well Gone One"] avoids both of these extremes; it gives vision, it gives knowledge, and it leads to peace, to direct acquaintance, to discovery, to nirvana. What is that middle way?
It is simply the Noble Eightfold Path, that is to say, right view, right intention; right speech, right action, right livelihood; right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.
What is "suffering"?
"The noble truth of suffering is this: Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and lamentation (crying), pain, grief, and despair are suffering; association with the loathed is suffering, dissociation from the loved is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering -- in short, suffering is the Five Aggregates of Clinging."The noble truth of the cause (origin) of suffering is: It is the craving [clinging, attachment based on ignorance of how things really are] that produces renewal of being accompanied by enjoyment and lust, enjoying this and that -- in other words, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for [eternal-] existence, or craving for non-existence [annihilation].
"The noble truth of the cessation (end) of suffering is: It is the remainderless fading and ceasing, giving up, relinquishing, letting go, and rejecting [by insight not willpower] of this craving [which is always rooted in ignorance].
"The noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering is: It is simply the Noble Eightfold Path....
"'The noble truth of suffering is this.' Such was the vision, the knowledge, the understanding, the finding, the light that arose in regard to ideas not heard by me before.
"'The noble truth of suffering can be diagnosed.' Such was the vision, the knowledge, the understanding, the finding, the light that arose in regard to ideas never before heard by me.
"'The noble truth of suffering has been diagnosed.' Such was the vision, the knowledge, the understanding, the finding, the light that arose in regard to ideas never before heard by me.
"'The noble truth of origin of suffering is this.' Such was the vision... 'This origin of suffering, as a noble truth, can be abandoned.' Such was the vision... More
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