Sustaining Doubt

 Master Boshang remarks on page 7 of Master Sheng Yen's Attaining the Way, "Not knowing where you came from prior to your birth, you have no choice but to wonder where you are from" (italics mine). I wonder, is it true that we have no choice but to wonder, or is this "having no choice" also created by the mind? What happens if we choose not to arouse the doubt sensation or even be curious about the question of our birth and death? I believe that some secular thinkers or skeptics even doubt that there was anything before birth or after death. There must be something special about this expression "having no choice", similar to the concept of choiceless awareness that I have read in other Buddhist texts.

I think that conviction in the question has to come from a certain urgency: either resolve the question now or perhaps never, or even when it's too late to even ponder it. To do so, one must put aside even the concept of choice, because choice entails a subject who chooses. In a sense, "having no choice" here likely means that awareness comes from a place of not choosing at all. This doesn't mean we are "forced" to ponder the question, but rather, the question is so embedded in our experience of life and mind that we can't help but wonder deep within our hearts "who came before me?" It is the one question that is responsible for the sense of unease that we experience that we aren't necessarily conscious of, but is nonetheless there.