"Doubt" is an interesting word. As you all have heard me say, doubt is a big one that can stop your practice, it can cripple it. It can wipe you out. It can cause you to hate your teachers, hate your friends, it can cause you to hate everything, yourself as well. However, doubt is also beneficial. We can have wise doubt. We want to be careful to see if we are just getting into a lot of negative qualities, looking at ourselves and doubting, doubting, doubting. As we develop more of an objective observation of the way things are, that's going to help us with doubt, because doubt cannot be present at the same time as basic objectivity which is based in actual reality. Doubt cannot be present at the same time.
Which doubts are actually beneficial and support the reflective, investigative quality of mind regarding one's habits, self-images, lifestyle, etc.? Which doubts? Ok, shall I smoke, shall I not smoke? Some of you have been smokers, I hope all of you have quit. If you are still smoking, then you haven't you haven't had a strong enough beneficial doubt about this unhealthy action arise.
This is a type of beneficial doubt. So, look at many of the things you think are happiness. And with some of them, maybe it's time to have a bit of doubt about them. Ask yourself, "Is this type of happiness really compassionate to yourself and others?"
How many hours of TV do you watch? Do you watch any? How many movies do you watch? How much alcohol, if any of you are still into it? Put some doubts in there as to whether that's how you want to live your life or whether something else could be more beneficial for you.
Another part of the question was how to distinguish between those sorts of beneficial doubts and self-doubt, which is harmful. Self-doubt is not always harmful. But self-doubt such as, "I'm terrible, I'm yucky, I can't do it," over and over and over, yes, that's harmful because the person is wallowing in it. But to have doubt that you can actually achieve something on occasion, it's not actually going to be harmful if you really feel that you can't achieve it. It might be more based in reality. But self-doubt which is just spinning, spinning, "I can't do this, I can't do this," is another story.
So what if you have the self-doubt in the moment such as "What am I doing this for?", just sitting still? How many of your relatives would sit still for 45 minutes? How many of your friends? How many of your friends or family want to encourage that doubt in you, right? How many people try to put doubts into you, for example, "What are you doing meditation for?" "Kind of selfish, isn't it?" "Meditation is inactive, doesn't help the world" and so on. We want to be able to defeat that sort of doubt, which usually comes from others. Otherwise it may affect us. Then we have the doubt and we are not sure. So we want to be able to defeat that.
Now, I'm going to put a little on a sideline of this, to defeat that doubt, the number one thing is to have a good, kind, wise spiritual friend, Kalyanamitta is the Pali word. It's the number one thing to defeat doubt. All of you come to these retreats, you have your interviews with me and Rosemary, you leave the interviews charged up, right? You leave the retreat charged up, right? 99%, if not more, you leave the interviews and the retreat charged up. Why? Was it just because you sat and walked and sat and walked. No, it wasn't just because of that, but it was because you were surrounded and supported by lots of Kalyanamittas. And with those good friends you raised up your confidence, you raised up your energy. So that's the number one thing. And in normal life you've got to have it as well, otherwise all the world's doubts will take you down.