Moha - Moha accompanied by doubt I

When one has the type of moha-mūla-citta which is accompanied by doubt, we doubts about the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. We may doubt whether the Buddha really discovered the truth, whether he taught the Path leading to the end of defilements, whether there are other people who can become enlightened as well. We may doubt about past and future lives, about kamma and vipāka. There are many degrees of doubt. When we start to develop insight we may have doubt about the reality of the present moment; we doubt whether it is nāma or rūpa. For example, when there is hearing, there is sound as well, but there can be awareness of only one reality at a time, since only one object at a time can be experienced by a citta. We may doubt whether the reality which appears at the present moment is the nāma which hears or the rūpa which is sound. Nāma and rūpa arise and fall away so rapidly and when a precise understanding of their different characteristics has not been developed one does not know which reality appears at the present moment. There will be doubt about the world of paramattha dhammas until paññā (wisdom) clearly knows the characteristics of nāma and rūpa as they appear through the six doors. 

 

The 'Atthasālinī'  (Book II, Part IX, Ch. III, 259) states about doubt:

 

Here doubt means exclusion from the cure (of knowledge).

Or, one investigating the intrinsic nature

by means of it suffers pain and fatigue (kicchati)- -thus it is doubt.

It has shifting about as characteristic,

mental wavering as function,

indecision or uncertainty in grasp as manifestation, 

unsystematic thought as proximate cause,

and it should be regarded as a danger to attainment.

 

Doubt is different from wrong view (ditthi). When there is ditthi one clings,

for example, to the view that phenomena are permanent or that they are self.

When vicikiccha, doubt, arises, one wonders whether the mind is different

from the body or not, whether phenomena are permanent or impermanent.

There is no other way to eradicate doubt but by developing of paññā which

sees realities as they are. People who have doubts about the Buddha and his

teachings may think that doubt can be cured by studying historical facts. They

want to find out more details about the time the Buddha lived and about the

places where he moved about; they want to know the exact time the texts

were written down. They cannot be cured of their doubt by studying historical

events; this does not lead to the goal of the Buddha's teachings which is the

eradication of defilements.