[ the courage to doubt, dept. ]

It takes real courage ie a deep active willingness, to doubt, to listen, to learn directly; to see what we think and believe is ‘true’, and to simply see that there are deeper questions calling for attention.
Questions like “Who am I really?”
Perhaps, one may instantly see not what one is, but what one is not: an idea. In lovingly watching the mind and its verbalizing, one may find that those words-about-words constantly raise questions and have no answers.
Doubt is the ‘thin edge of the wedge’ that cracks the shell of our beliefs, that leads us – albeit sometimes ruthlessly, like love – through and beyond concepts and their attachments. In that clarity lies the freedom not to believe; the Doubter is seen as non-existent and all personal approaches to a knowledge-based ‘understanding’ are abandoned. In abject not-knowing, with grace and loving curiosity, we may see what we’re not – not ‘eventually see, with method and time, but instantly. Then only can we learn, moment-to-moment, what we are. One never, ever, knows, there being in fact no Knower. Ah paradox – even in love, which we are, there’s no lover, yes 🙂
“Ring the bells that can still be rung, forget your perfect offering. there’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in. ~Leonard Cohen