Jan Sendzimir JDPSN: On Doubt – Letter to a student (2025)

Hello!

Good to hear from you, especially to learn that you are happily exploring a relationship with a new partner, and that you are taking significant risks with responsibilities far bigger than you ever assumed before. As the old saying goes: your reach should always exceed your grasp, i.e. you will never grow if you always play it safe, so extend yourself beyond what you know.

Amidst all this risk‑taking, it seems that you feel some doubt, so you asked for my advice. Rather than “advice”, let me share what appears to me as I read what you wrote.

First, doubt seems like a shadow in many of the things you do. But what kind of doubt? Whether you wonder whether you can make your partner “happy and content” or whether you would even be able to do the job of leading a team to complete a complex project, ask yourself whether these questions emerge from doubting yourself or from an open curiosity that fearlessly explores each challenge, no matter what the result might be. Doubt can be healthy if it opens you to really look at this moment, but it becomes pathological when it closes you off from the world because you doubt yourself. That means you have lost “the Great Question” of “What am I?” You have decided and labeled yourself, and your “doubt” simply fixes you to the label that you made.

This kind of harmful doubt is evident in how you describe your life: “It feels I had been so frivolous about so many things in my life — my health, relationships and career.” Some people never wake up. Some wake up right away, and some at many points in the middle of life. But this is a question beyond time. Who cares when you wake up? Just wake up, right now. That is how you can stay awake. With one jump you leave the harmful doubt‑label behind, and you rest in this moment, exploring what life brings you next. You cannot drive a car always looking in the rear‑view mirror. Looking back is necessary sometimes, but just to check for a moment where you came from. The main thing is right in front of you, and a “healthy curiosity” carries you forward to explore the mystery of this moment.

The first Zen Master to arrive in North America from Japan once said that he aimed to live his life so fully that by the end of his life there would be nothing left, as if all the flavor had left the tea bag and added flavor to the tea of his life and everyone around him. That is truly living fully in this moment — so nothing is left. Actually, all of this you already understand. You just have to do it. Open yourself to what each moment asks of you: to love and cherish your partner, help those around you, be grateful for this precious jewel of life.

We are visiting family abroad this winter, and will return to Central Europe in the spring. Perhaps we can meet after that. Until then, not far from you is a wonderful teacher. I taught there last autumn, and enjoyed a wonderful time with the local community and with this teacher and their family. I would go back any time, but I am over here on the other side of the ocean. You can go anytime you want. I cannot recommend it enough.

Be well and stay in touch,

Jan