Doubt Everything

An important quality to work with during your personal development and spiritual journey is doubt. This is the process of intentionally doubting everything in life—your beliefs, roles, opinions, thoughts, feelings, attachments, and perspectives.

For instance, doubt anything that you have gained or done has made a difference. Doubt that there is a God or any deity. Doubt that the “universe has my back.” Doubt that you’re making progress and that it matters. Doubt that you’re loved and people care about you. Doubt that your life and existence matters. Doubt what you believe. Doubt what you think is right. Doubt what you think is wrong. Doubt that you are important. Doubt that you have a purpose.

Doubting is not a process of blaming or criticizing yourself. You are not beating yourself up. Doubting is questioning the validity of everything you believe to be true. It’s asking, “Could I be wrong?”

In my Zen tradition, we are encouraged to engage in doubt. The idea is to peel away the layers of ego so that we clearly see, or maybe experience, everything as empty. It’s in this emptiness that we get closer to the truth. The truth to what? That we haven’t gained or realized anything, nor has anybody else. That we are just ordinary human beings and nothing special. Ironically, there’s a sense of freedom that accompanies our “ordinariness.” We can now approach our life with humility and appreciation, and allow it to be, as it is, rather than obsessing over and trying to control our past and future.

Thinking that we can control everything limits our perspective and leads to irrational decisions and harmful behaviors. Our attachment to control develops an over-reliance on magical thinking and blind optimism. We tend to blindly trust in “the universe” or in our “gut” when making decisions—even if there’s no rationality or logical basis to do so.

Doubting everything helps us break-free from the illusion of control. After working with doubt for many years, I have noticed more comfort with uncertainty and the unknown. I have less of a need and desire to figure things out and plan for an unknown future. I’m less worried and attached to getting certain results. In other words, I don’t feel the need to control my life. I feel more engaged in the present, rather than worrying about my past and future.

Doubt can be painful. One of its objectives is to shatter our egos and models about how reality operates. For example, years ago I doubted that after I die there’s a place we go to. I doubted eternal life. I doubted heaven and hell. I doubted that I even had a soul. I spent many years doubting my mortality. Being raised as a Christian Catholic, you can probably imagine the despair I went through (and my parents).

But on the other end of my doubt was relief. There was a certain comfort in not knowing what happens to me after I die. My relationship to life changed, too. I began to see that we are not separate selves living in an alien world of consumption. Life has an interdependency. Our actions are not isolated events. Everything we do or don’t do has some kind of effect on life, regardless if we can see it or not.

Or…maybe not. Maybe none of what I just said is true at all. Fucking doubt—love you.

Doubt can improve our accuracy of reality. Not by adding layers onto our reality, but by the process of negation. We don’t blindly accept “truths” with doubt. Instead, we question all truths and look at things with a skeptic’s eye. Just because one person says it’s “truth”, doesn’t mean it’s true for you. Through this process of doubt our illusions and biases become more readily apparent. As such, our critical thinking improves, new possibilities open up, and our world views broaden.

Working with doubt

During my journey, I have found two effective ways to incorporate doubt into our lives. First, when you feel doubtful, recognize the doubt and stay with it. Really embody that feeling of doubt and notice its energy in your body and how it influences your thinking. Essentially, what you’re doing here is processing the doubt rather than bypassing it.

Second, consciously engage doubt with questions. Ask yourself questions like, “Who am I?” “What is it?” “What is this life?” “Could I be wrong?”

My favorite question is, “What is it?” I ask this question over and over, especially during meditation.

It’s important to note that you are not looking for answers to these questions. What you are doing is turning the light inward and observing the emptiness that these questions provide. Doubt everything, and expect nothing in return. You might just find the freedom you’re looking for.