The Hidden Trap of Spiritual Beliefs

Beyond Spiritual Beliefs

Do you know what it's like to follow a spiritual path for years, learn from different teachers, and read lots of spiritual books, only to be full of doubts about whether you're on the right track or not? 

Maybe you have even become uncertain if you will ever find enlightenment if you keep continuing your path. 

If you find yourself in this situation, it's very likely you've fallen into a common trap.

It's not that you haven't meditated enough. It's not that you haven't followed enough spiritual teachings, and it's certainly not because you haven't engaged in a variety of spiritual practices. 

In fact, it's exactly these efforts that may actually be holding you back. Your intense focus on attempting to meditate "the right way," your blind belief in superficial spiritual ideas, and your lack of trust in yourself may be holding you back.

These things prevent you from experiencing the breakthrough you’ve been seeking all along. The problem is not that you follow a deep yearning for truth and connection, a desire to truly know yourself and understand the world. The real problem is that you’re stuck in belief systems that keep you from trusting your own inner wisdom. 

Instead of observing and understanding yourself and the world directly, you rely on second-hand knowledge from external sources.

You keep attaching to beliefs that filter and distort the reality right in front of you and get more and more conflicted. What stops you from finding what you are really looking for is blind trust in these external sources and beliefs. It doesn't matter what belief you're attaching to, because any belief will blind you to what's right in front of you. 

Whether it’s a spiritual belief or a materialistic belief, it’s all the same. 

It’s just an idea that limits what has actually no limits.

Every belief we hold, without exception, is like a cloud covering the sun. Even though the sun remains constant and ever-present, its light is hidden when it gets covered by clouds. In a similar way, our beliefs cloud our perception of the underlying truth. The truth that’s always there but is hidden behind the clouds of our own ideas and beliefs.

It’s not a surprise that we don’t see truth as it is. 

We don’t even see the moment as it is if we keep attaching to our ideas. And by attaching to our ideas, we form an entire identity around them, making us even less aware of what’s actually going on.

Pointing To the Moon

There is a well-known example in Zen that illustrates this concept. 

A Zen master once told his students that his teachings, like those of the Buddha, are merely a finger pointing to the moon. The finger just indicates the direction and guides the students to look at the moon, but the finger is not the moon itself. If the students become fixated on the finger, they will miss seeing the moon entirely.

True understanding cannot come from clinging to concepts, beliefs, or words but only from seeing reality as it is. If we keep attaching to the teachings—the finger—it prevents direct experience of the truth. 

This explains that any teaching and belief is just a guide, not the ultimate truth. Whenever we become attached to them, we miss the direct experience of reality. To truly see the "moon," we must go beyond the “finger” and let go of our attachments to beliefs.

Why Purifying Yourself Won't Bring Enlightenment

Let’s consider a common spiritual belief: “You have to purify yourself in order to become worthy of enlightenment.” 

Many meditators actually hold this belief, whether consciously or unconsciously. 

They focus on cleansing their thoughts, emotions, and actions, thinking that they can only reach a higher state of being going through this process.

I mean, it’s a wonderful idea to become more conscious about your thoughts, emotions, and actions, and I don’t want to suggest stopping it. However, let's be radical with this. 

If you believe you need to purify yourself in order to become worthy of enlightenment, you are not only implying that enlightenment is separate from you, but you also create a sense of unworthiness for yourself.

You also postpone the realization of your enlightened nature because you never feel good enough as you are. It’s like holding an ideal in your mind, constantly striving and praying to become like that, hoping one day you'll eventually reach it. But again, trying to become something, trying to reach something, already implies it’s not here now. It means you're aiming for a state of being, or some achievement, which by its nature is impermanent.

Believing you need to purify yourself in order to attain enlightenment will just make you feel unworthy, and it keeps you chasing something that’s actually already within you. 

This is a very common belief among meditators, but actually, any belief you hold onto will keep you from experiencing reality directly and realizing enlightenment right in this moment. 

Maybe you believe enlightenment is a special state of being and this moment is just too ordinary to be it.

See, another belief holding you back. 

Maybe you can already think of some other beliefs you cling to. Maybe you even don’t want to let go of them. This is also very common. But in the end, we’ll realize that no idea or belief is ultimately true; they’re just fingers pointing to the moon.

Throwing Away All Beliefs

Ok, good. But now you might say, “Hey, if I follow your advice, isn’t this just adopting another belief?” 

It’s the belief that clinging to any belief will always keep you from seeing the real truth. 

So, on one hand, I’m telling you to let go of your beliefs. On the other hand, I give you a new belief to hold onto, which is to abandon all of your beliefs.

If you try to resolve this with your rational mind, you’ll end up getting stuck. You’ll be more confused than before. Holding onto beliefs keeps you from seeing reality clearly. But if you reject all beliefs because of attaching to this one belief, you’ll still miss the truth.

So what can you do? 

In Buddhism, there's a teaching that may help with this. Imagine you have a thorn stuck in your foot—this thorn symbolizes the beliefs you cling to. To get it out, you use another thorn, which represents the idea that you should give up all beliefs. Once you've removed the first thorn, you don't need the second thorn anymore and can throw it away.

The idea is that while you may need a temporary solution to solve a problem, you shouldn’t keep holding onto this solution. Makes sense, right? 

How can we apply this teaching to let go of our beliefs? How can we identify both conscious and unconscious beliefs, and what steps can we take to let go of them? Before I answer this question, I’d like to clarify our goal first.

The goal, for me, is to see things as they are. That’s the simplest way to put it. Now, I could also refer to it as attaining enlightenment in every moment; seeing true nature without the distortion of our beliefs and perceptions. It’s about experiencing reality directly and fully, without the filters of preconceived ideas and beliefs. Without the filter that separates us from the world, making us think we are born and we are going to die and we are all separate and alone.

Just seeing everything as it really is.

The Direct Way of Letting Go

Before we can let go of beliefs, we first need to identify them. 

We can do this by observing our thoughts and internal dialogue. It doesn’t matter if we do this during meditation or by simply paying attention to our thoughts in our daily lives. We just need to stay attentive to what’s happening in our minds.

Actually, I take a radical approach and consider every thought I have as a belief. 

I've also noticed that some beliefs are more superficial and easy to let go of, while others are more deeply ingrained and much harder to release. It doesn’t matter, because any belief or thought we hold is like a cloud passing over the sun. If we don’t build a story around a belief, or a cloud in this example, we simply see it as a cloud passing over the sun.

No matter how it appears—whether big and dark or light and thin—a cloud is just a cloud. We’re not trying to distinguish between different types of beliefs. 

We take a direct approach: we identify each belief that we become aware of. Sure, some beliefs might be easy to identify, while others can be more difficult to spot. 

Everything I’ve just said is, of course, based on a belief. Whenever we make distinctions, saying “this is so” or “that is different,” we are basing it on some kind of belief.

In my opinion, the easiest way to spot beliefs is when I make statements that sound absolute or if I take something for granted. “It’s always like this.” or “It’s supposed to work like that.” Whatever. Although some of our beliefs might be somewhat true, in a relative sense, they are not true in an absolute sense.

Now, when we have spotted a belief, we go over to the next step. 

The next step takes some courage. It can be really hard to let go of some beliefs, but it’s necessary to do that in order to see reality clearly. There is no way around it. We have to be willing to let go of them, and there are many ways to accomplish that. We can either investigate the belief, inquire into it, and find out with our rational minds why it is not absolutely true, or we can take the direct approach.

I prefer the direct approach. 

It may be too easy for you to use the direct approach, but let me explain it. 

Whenever you become aware of a belief, you have already let go of the belief. I’ll say it again. Whenever you become aware of a belief, you have already let go of that belief. When we become aware of a belief, we create distance from it rather than staying entangled by it.

Imagine you are wearing red glasses. Everything you see looks red—red cars, red trees, red water, red people—the whole world appears to be red. Then, suddenly, you become aware of the fact that you are wearing red glasses. Now you understand that what you are seeing is not the true color of these things; it’s just the red tint of your glasses. Even if you keep wearing these glasses, you now know for sure that they are changing how you see the world. 

This realization can’t be undone. 

You know it for a fact, and you can’t deny it any longer. Now, I just wanted to make this point. Please don’t take this as a perfect example, but rather as a simple way to understand how becoming aware of a belief already changes our perspective.

You might argue that this doesn’t work. 

Just becoming aware of a belief doesn’t always make it go away. 

The belief might stay, especially if it’s deeply rooted, and you’re not ready to let it go. If that’s the case, don’t worry. I totally understand you, because I’ve dealt with this many times myself. 

This might be a radical solution, but if you deal with this issue, you are actually not really aware of what’s going on right now.

You might have “belief A." You become aware of this belief, but it won’t go away. Now consider if this is really true? 

Or maybe you have “belief A,” and as you try to let it go, another belief immediately pops up and says, “I can’t get rid of belief A.” 

So instead of dealing with the original belief, you're now caught up in another belief about not being able to let go of the first one.

The original belief already disappeared from your mind, but now you are wrestling with the belief that followed it. I know it sounds crazy, but based on my own experience, this is often what happens. We end up stuck with a new belief that appears unconsciously, meaning we're not even aware of it.

Actually, this is the best proof that the method works. Since you haven’t become aware of the second belief, you haven’t been able to let it go. You might think you’re still dealing with the first belief, but it’s actually the second, unconscious belief that has taken over. 

“But my first belief keeps repeating, even though I’ve become aware of it,” you might argue.

That sounds like another belief you might need to let go of. 

Now, let’s not get caught up in trying to let go of all beliefs we have. This will be an endless pursuit. As you have seen in my previous examples, it’s not really about trying to fight your beliefs; it’s about becoming aware of what’s right in front of you.

If that’s a belief, then fine—you’ve already let it go. Just remember not to get attached to having or not having beliefs. Instead, just stay aware of your thoughts and how they move. And last but not least, get comfortable with uncertainty. 

A belief always reassures us that things are as we expect them to be, but real understanding and true wisdom only come from embracing the unknown.

The more you notice how beliefs cloud your vision, the more you'll explore the unknown and find clear insight. And the more you stay in the unknown, rather than holding onto familiar beliefs, the deeper you’ll move towards true enlightenment and a clear understanding of yourself and the world. 

As you work on letting go of beliefs and seeing things clearly, I’d love to support you further.

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