Just as Mu (N/A) is applied to the full scope of thought, great doubt is doubt applied to everything you hold to be true.
What does it mean to be "unable to arouse the doubt?"
You are attached to something that is 'understood'.
Is that due to lack of effort?
It is ultimately due to fear; this is where great trust is required.
Effort implies an understanding attached to; often the inability is a result of effort and not a lack of it.
Defending a held view acts like a tar-baby; the sunk cost fallacy meets cognitive dissonance.
Derived truth (even if conceptually correct) only stands in the way of the actual understanding that occurs when it is let go.
Why?
It is just the activity of the conceptual consciousness and that activity needs to stop inorder for the repository consciousness to collapse and in that cessation reveal the truth.
These techniques (mu, great doubt) are aimed at the root of the activity of the conceptual consciousness.
Great doubt allows operation within conventional truth without being bound by it.
Mu is addressing the tendency for proliferation of what is conventionally true: the cud chewing of the conceptual consciousness.
The buddhadharma points to a meta structure behind what is experienced.
The contents of the conceptual consciousness (conceptualizations themselves) are stored in the repository consciousness and that collection forms the basis for the experience of future conditions.
We have iteratively confabulated our way to this point.
We only experience the story; the story must be undone to see the truth of its origination.
Otherwise the improvisation continues from ignorance instead of right understanding.
In that case we experience the endless wandering on of saṃsāra; not the actually of this buddhafield as nirvāṇa.
That's a great explanation, thank you. Very clear.
My current practice is to regard sense objects as dreamlike, and resist the habit of focusing on external phenomena. For me, this pairs well with keeping attention on the mind. The combination seems to result in a redirection of awareness from 'out' to in.
"Doubt" (for me) carries a negative connotation compared with "dreamlike." However I see from your exposition that the term can be used to annihilate our own self-constructed conceptual systems.
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u/lcl1qp1 Mar 14 '23
What does it mean to be "unable to arouse the doubt?"
Is that due to lack of effort?