Vicikiccha
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vicikiccha; Skeptical Doubt, The kind of doubt that undermines faith; one of the five hindrances to meditation.
vicikiccha; Suspicion;
There is another akusala cetasika in these 14 akusala cetasikas. It is vicikiccha cetasika. It is undecisiveness. It is suspicion. It is suspicion on dhamma, sangha, the Buddha, paticcasamuppada or dependent origination and the practice.
'sceptical doubt', is one of the 5 mental hindrances (nīvarana) and one of the 3 fetters (samyojana), which disappear for ever at Stream-entry, the first stage of holiness (s. ariya-puggala).
As a fetter, it refers to sceptical doubt about the Master (the Buddha), the Teaching, the Sangha, and the training; about things past and future, and conditionality (Dhs.1004; cf. A.X.71).
It also applies to uncertainty whether things are wholesome or not, to be practiced or not, of high or low value, etc.
According to Vis.M. XIV, 177, vicikicchā is the lack of desire to think (things out i.e. to come to a conclusion; vigata-cikicchā, desiderative to Ö cit, to think); it has the nature of wavering, and its manifestation is indecision and a divided attitude; its proximate cause is unwise attention to matters of doubt.
It is associated with one of the 2 classes of unwholesome consciousness rooted in delusion (Tab. I, No. 32).
Vicikiccha or doubt is another akusala cetasika.
1. Doubt is another akusala dhamma which is a hindrance. Doubt about the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, doubt about realities, all these kinds of doubt are a hindrance to the development of kusala, a hindrance to the development of right understanding. We need courage to continue to develop satipatthana, so that doubt can eventually be eradicated.
2. Vicikiccha is not the same as what we mean by doubt in conventional language. Vicikiccha is not doubt about someone's name or about the weather. Vicikiccha is doubt about realities, about nama and rupa, about cause and result, about the four noble Truths, about the "Dependant Origination".
One of the six Kamacchandas;