Promise of the Practice

There is a promise in the practice, the promise that we can overcome our daily and persistent suffering through right action and right thought. Suffering for each of us is different—the make up of our minds, experiences, and insights drive different thorns into our spirits and create unique and varied tortures. Thankfully (regretfully?), there are themes to these sufferings, and thus a framework can emerge to salve the wounds we cultivate.

My wound is doubt. It is a two-edged blade, perfect made for slicing clearly into the wrongness and weakness of an argument, but as sharp and biting as a scalpel when applied to myself. In the practice, there is a promise that I may be rid of this wound, of the constant presence of self-doubt that nips unceasingly at my confidence.

My instructor these past weeks shared that the thing that keeps a practice going is either deep curiosity, or great pain. I have both. I can look today and see that my self-doubt is great, and challenging, and unexamined or explored. I can turn it over, look to its source, learn to see the shape of it for the first time. Through practice, I can explore whether doubt can be overcome, improved, put to bed, befriended.

So the teacher said,”Just as when a carpenter or carpenter’s apprentice sees the marks of his fingers or thumb on the handle of his adze but does not know, ‘Today my adze handle wore down this much, or yesterday it wore down that much, or the day before yesterday it wore down this much,’ still he knows it is worn through when it is worn through. In the same way, when a monk dwells devoting himself to development, he does not know, ‘Today my effluents wore down this much, or yesterday they wore down that much, or the day before yesterday they wore down this much,’ still he knows they are worn through when they are worn through.”

So, too, bit by bit, will I see my doubt worn away, such is the promise of the practice.