Question

Can you please talk more about doubt manifesting as feeling stuck and indecisive and having to move forward through it. Thanks.

Answer

I'm not sure I understand this question, but I'll try. Sometimes we feel stuck and indecisive because we don't know what's important to us. I was talking about that at the beginning of the questions and answers. Feeling stuck and indecisive, we have to strengthen our direction in our life and understand where it's taking us. And that doesn't necessarily mean that we know what's going to happen in the future, and that we have to figure everything out, actually. Because a lot of people feel that they go round and round in circles trying to figure out what's going to happen in the future.

It's more important to strengthen our direction and our appreciation of our direction, of the practice, of what we're doing, of what's important to us, and of what is important in this life; than trying to figure out what the results of all our decisions are going to be. Because there's a big difference between the material and the spiritual here. Many people think that they don't like wise decisions because the result on a worldly level is not very good. And therefore they get stuck in a lot of doubt concerning that.

When we strengthen our direction and strengthen our intentions, often we do things that on a worldly level don't seem so great. But it strengthens our direction, it strengthens our Paramis. It may have been difficult, but we kept to our principles. We don't have to make decisions in which the results are going to be in line with what we would like things to be all the time. Strengthening our direction, strengthening our appreciation of our direction, helps us to not be always thinking, "Well is this result good? Is this good?" based on whether it's pleasant or not. Because sometimes the results of making decisions to keep to our direction, is just not pleasant. But it strengthens our Paramis, it strengthens our Determination, it strengthens our resolve to go in a certain direction.

As well, we let Kamma take care of itself in that way. That is, looking at our intentions more - what is our intention for doing this? Is it beneficial, is it not? Sometimes doubt arises because we may have made a decision, and then the results didn't occur in the way that we would have wanted them to be, and we didn't have pleasant worldly feeling in the way we would have liked. But we're not here just to get worldly happiness as well as spiritual happiness. For a lot of people, "If I can't get worldly happiness, then I'm not going to go the path. I won't go." Sometimes we have to give up one happiness, if we're really going to strengthen our direction. That means investigating into what is happiness and what it is not, so that we're not swayed by unpleasant experiences when they arise, and we see them as more of an opportunity to continue our direction.

Coming into a split in the path, not knowing which way to go; many people will wait because they don't know what to relate that decision to. Then they become confused, if I go this way what will happen, if I go that way what will happen? Then, because they don't know how to relate it to anything, what's important to them, they will make a decision based on basically whether they will get more pleasant feelings this way. But if you have some wise principles and a direction to relate the decision to, you may see that you get more pleasure one way, but you get more growth another way, so you go the second way, even though it's not as pleasant as the first way. And sometimes when you're going this way, you may look back, "Hey this isn't pleasant, maybe I should have gone the other way." But you remember why you made this decision, "Ah it's for more growth!" So when the Dukkha comes up, "This is an opportunity, this is why I went this way, I wanted to grow!" So you better be careful what you wish, if you want to grow, you have to be willing to confront all your desires and your cravings and other things that make it difficult. And confront Dukkha in your life, and yet see it as a means for growth.

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.