The Hidden “Spiritual Life” of Doctoral Studies?

When I first entered the doctoral program, I was mainly worried about the high tuition fee. Naturally, when one is worried about finances, their initial orientation is going to be, “what’s the financial payoff of doing this program?” In other words, the emphasis shifts toward a cost/benefit analysis. Lately, however, I have lately been thinking that it may be important to look at this whole journey more in terms of a spiritual journey. There is even a spiritual meaning to paying a high price for uncertainty.

            Doctoral studies seems to me to most resemble initiation into liminal space: a transition space where a person is trying to consolidate their identity, and where there are very few structures that direct a person to where to go or what area in which to specialize. Such a journey has to be met with a strange combination of soft yielding and perseverance. “Soft yielding” means being able to abide with uncertainty until a creative process can take birth. Perseverance means to be able to push through and still work with some degree of regularity and continuity. I compare this latter to “making a solid building in the middle of a cyclone”. Of course the “solid building” is going to crumble many, many times, but a person still needs to cultivate the attitude of a daily practice, whether it be in reading, walking reflection, writing, or just doing the regular class work that is expected.

            And what does the “cyclone” in the latter metaphor refer to? For me, it’s really and basically about navigating the unformed ideas that have not yet been synthesized. I wrote four “practice” proposals for a recent scholarship application, and, to be honest, I am not pleased with any of them. They are things that I did in the hopes of being able to form a robust thesis, but they are written at a time when things simply aren’t solidified yet in my mind. Still, I have to do the things that students do for funding, and that is, write, write and write, until something in that writing (and reading) starts to make sense and look somewhat original.

            Writing and research, like meditation, is a discipline that is done in the midst of impermanence. The hardest thing about it is knowing that there is no measurement for saying that a person is doing well or poorly, because as soon as a person does that, they are no longer meditating! They are not in the moment of creation; instead, through doubt and wanting to measure themselves, they have stepped out of that process altogether. So it seems best not to try to measure one’s progress.