It’s in times like today, when the world order as we’ve known it seems to be unravelling at great speed, when there are no easy answers and efforts to bring stability seem to be falling apart before they’ve had a chance to have any effect, that certainty and reliance on things as they were gives way to DOUBT. And this response is so not only with how we meet conditions in the world, but also in our personal lives—doubt about our work, relationships, ourselves….

Doubt has many faces including but not limited to skepticism, cynicism, anger, fear and hopelessness. So it’s no wonder that we might grasp at anything to allay all the uncomfortable feelings that arise with uncertainty. But doubt can also be a gateway into possibility opening a pathway to seeing things in a new and deeper way which then leads us into taking wiser action.

In fact, Zen practice supports doubt by encouraging us to not settle for easy answers. Instead of grasping for quick answers and actions, we slow down, allowing other possibilities to arise by asking “is this so?” “is there more to this that in my usual way of dealing with these things, that I’m missing?” We’re encouraged to step away from the habitual certainty with which we meet the world to allow and meet doubt as a signal that something deeper is coming into the horizon of our understanding. Rather than turning away from uncertainty, groundlessness, loss of directions, Zen practice encourages us to make doubt our companion for as Voltaire reminds us,

“Doubt is uncomfortable, but certainty is ridiculous.”

I explore DOUBT a bit more in the attached Dharma Talk which I recently gave at the Bay Zen Center in Oakland, CA. Please give a listen, and I’d love to hear your comments.