struggles

zebra

I started practicing Tibetan Buddhism in early '07. I jumped in with two feet first.
Now I find myself really struggling with my doubts, and with my practice.

How do I figure out whether Buddha nature exists? How do I develop faith in myself?
I doubt my abilities and my capacity for improvement/compassion/realization, which I know is a very large hindrance on the path. How to believe that enlightenment is real and something I can actually achieve when I have no example walking around in my daily life? I do realize that I have no idea where my thoughts are coming from or going to, but this mystery is easily buried underneath my neurotic activity that I cram every second of my life with. When I am all alone, I feel like this stuff is a fairy tale that I made up and yet I remember that spiritual honeymoon when I felt so strongly about the teachings. I know the Buddha didn't want people to have blind faith, but to know and experience--but the experience that gave me faith in the esoteric practices is now a memory. Please help by giving me your thoughts? thanks

caz

Doubts will occur very often, it is not an easy thing to come to terms with beleiving that you have the potential to become enlightened the story of angulimala is inspiring possibly one of the worst people alive during buddha's time and then he managed enlightenment, we all possess the potential just as through continued usage of anger we become a more angry person through continually repeating the contemplations and meditations on compassion for instance we shall grow more compassionate.
From personal experience i can tell you that these things arent fairytales, i suggest you begin by first examining your mind and watching all the subsequent parts arise and where everything fits and you'll see its not a far leap that these impure states can be removed and transformed into pure ones.

Good luck.

Stephen

I would suggest another way, if it suits your temperament. Often we become entangled in the process and so our mind is not directed toward the goal. Following the Noble Eightfold Path to achieve awakening is a direct route, but it takes a great deal of time to perfect morality, attain the one-pointedness of mind of concentration, and finally find wisdom through your insight.

From personal experience, I can tell you that it may not be necessary for you to firstly follow the path. Start out by examining the Four Noble Truths; the first 3 of these on the natural unsatisfactoriness of life, the cause of this in humans (tanha or craving), and the cessation of our suffering, really become a self-evident chain of logic. Nothing is permanent, our attempt to create a sense of permanence in face of that fact leads to our suffering, and if we stopped living that way we would become unbound to dukkha.

The way I did it was to build a conceptual knowledge of the important facets of Buddhism: impermanence, selflessness, and dependent arising. If you can focus your mind, perhaps through concentration on breathing, and meditate upon the impermanent nature of everything you've ever experienced... on the impermanence of the self (we are, after all, just a mass of organs, flesh, bones, working together for survival), and that with impermanence it follows that all things that arise do so because of conditions, and cease to be dependent upon cessation of those conditions...

Well, it does take some effort, but clearly not as much effort as some might have you believe. All that you really need is a basic understanding of the tenets of Buddhism, and a calm and focused mind to contemplate them with. Afterwards you will no longer question the Four Noble Truths, and no other path (be it non-religion, agnosticism, or any of the myriad of religions in the world) will have any appeal to you, because you will know the truth as clearly as the sunlight warming your face.