Doubt, Paralysis, and Parental Avoidance

It is probably not a surprise to you that the generalized, Western conceptions as to the nature of doubt tend to include some sort of paralysis. Doubt stops us. Doubt freezes us. Doubt collapses our world into an intense moment of undeniable pressure--crippling pressure. We can't move. We can't do anything. We can't... uhm... even... know. We become lost.

Maybe I should say, 'adrift,' that we become adrift--as if unleashed from the firm conceptions of the world the way we thought it was. For instance, Hamlet upon hearing the news of his Father's assasination by his Uncle--an Uncle who then bedded down with Hamlet's mother--is the archetypal symbol of doubt and paralysis in literary form. And you tell me that such as what Hamlet came to know would not cause you to doubt your world: that everything that you ever thought you knew: Gone. Every assumption you had about what was taking place: Gone. Every notion about the nature of what was transpiring around you: Gone. Gone... gone... gone... totally gone... totally and absolutely gone. All a dream. All a fantasy. All an illusion.

Siddhartha, the Buddha-to-be, had a similar experience when he finally glimpsed suffering for the first time. The young Prince had been sheltered by the King, his Father, for fear that Siddhartha's inherently compassionate nature would be stirred and he would leave the palace grounds for search targeting the Truth... targeting Healing... in search of the Answers. The King's fears were warranted as we now know. Siddhartha's world too collapsed. The illusions of perfection and bliss and comfort were revealed as 'empty.' The only substance behind the 'absence of suffering' was no substance at all. It was a performance, an act, a manufatcured event meant for Siddhartha's consumption. It was a media event! A media event intended for one person--so as to give that person, the Prince, an impression of existence in this-world that was illusory, untrue, false.

The King edited Siddhartha's world for him. The King deleted all the scenes that might 'break' Siddhartha's Heart Wide Open!

What parent doesn't attempt to do that for their child--to give them the best, to shelter them from suffering, to protect them from the grotesque and the ugly and the cruel and the inhumane. And what parent doesn't ultimately fail in that regard, just like the King failed to shield Siddhartha from the often gruesome and troubling 'facts of life and death?'