How does the 'Great Doubt' compare to doubt? A while back I heard something about the 'Great Doubt'. I think it is a Zen thing? Does anyone know what it is and how it might compare to the doubt that all human beings feel from time to time?

Many Thanks
I think Stephanie of Treeleaf puts it well:


  I used to feel very confused as to what set "Great Doubt," the virtue, apart from "skeptical doubt," one of the traditional Five Hindrances of Buddhism. I have since learned from my experience that skeptical doubt is more of an automatic resistance to things, a destructive tendency to pick apart and reject even what is good, that bats away and refuses to entertain anything that comes along and does not fit within parameters of what has been determined to be acceptable or true. Whereas Great Doubt is the presence of a question or questions that push us beyond the normal boundaries of our thought processes, beyond the answers that usually comfort and reassure us.


This matches my own experience. Regular doubt is based on fear. It is the lack of trust or courage to let go of our conceptual/emotional ground and to go all the way into the quest for Truth. In contrast, Great Doubt (Japanese "gidan" or "dai-gidan"; Chinese "yituan"/"dayituan") is suspending one's judgement and giving up all grasping to certainty, all attachment to preconceived notions - including one's assumptions about the nature of dharma, the goal, everything.

Regular doubt is the mind of "I know", the mind of calculation and negotiation, the "setting sun" mind, flat mind, logical mind, wavering mind.

Great Doubt is the mind of "only don't know", is the "beginner's mind", the ego-less mind, the "Great Eastern Sun", the vulnerable mind, the mind that is completely open, the mind combining the opposites.

Regular doubt is an obstacle on the path, Great Doubt is the door to Freedom.