Problems Bared, Essays on Buddhism

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sibility of knowledge is an obstruction (nīvaraṇa) to moral progress
and a fetter (saṁyojana) preventing one even from entering the path
of holiness (sotāpattimagga). As such it may be compared with the
unpardonable sin in Christianity 2 , which closes the door to salvation
with the wilful rejection of the hand stretched out in rescue.
The objects of such unskilful perplexity are usually enumerated
as the following six: doubt about the Teacher, his character, his
knowledge and attainment; doubt about the doctrine, its efficacy of
leading to deliverance and the possibility of realisation, doubt about
the order or community of saints and the usefulness of the path of
holiness; doubt about the method of training and its helpfulness
in the development of higher virtue, meditation and insight; doubt
about the nature and composition of the aggregates of existence, of
the elementary qualities, of the organs and the fields of operation of
the physical and mental senses; doubt also about the conditionality
of the processes of origination, causality and cessation of the various
phases of birth, life and death, physical and mental. They all have
one factor in common, and that is the refusal to act, because of the
lack of initiative, lack of confidence, lack of understanding.
When there is not even an initial confidence (saddhā) in the
Teacher, there cannot be a desire to experiment with, to follow up,
his teaching, his path; no spirit of investigation to find out for oneself.
There will be no open mind to make an impartial enquiry.
There will be no fair chance to the possibility of success, no regard,
no reverential or even affectionate attitude towards those who have
handed over the doctrine from generation to generation. Wrong
concepts regarding the composition of nature as substanceless and
soulless will prevail and force a search in the wrong direction, preventing
a recovery which would be misunderstood as a retrogression,
a decline and deterioration.
2 Mt. xii, 31