Hey Friend:

Some Questions from and Answers to a Friend haunted by Doubt (Vicikicchā):

Question:
>I usually rely on myself to solve problems.

Answer:
Buddha would agree on that one, since he said.
“No one can purify another”
“Attã hi attano nãtho: Let self be the helper of self.”
“For self is the master of self.
For self is the protector of self.
For self is the saviour of self.” Dhp 380

Question2: > I often suffer from low grade, long term depression

Answer2: Do daily Metta meditation on Universal Friendliness, which will elevate the mind:
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/V/Advantageous_is_Friendship.htm Study the links.
This is the right tool and medicine here, since it substitutes with the opposite state.

Question3: > I watch my mind cave in and indulge in the object of those cravings.

Answer3: Do daily Asubha meditation on Disgust, which will cool down & avert the mind:
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/V/Bluish_Victory.htm Study the links.
This is the right tool and medicine here, since it substitutes with the opposite state.

Question4: > but I still am struggling with other forms of abuse. I fail on the fifth precept.

Answer4: If it is ganja/grass/marijuana, then know that it is mind searching for a CALM
it has known before…! Often ganja-smokers have been meditators in prior lives,
which make them addicted to a similar, yet now easy “Chemical Calm” unfortunately
not without the side-effects of: Laziness, neglect, memory, ability and learning loss etc.
If it is coke/ecstasy and other ‘speedy’ drugs: There are EXTREMELY DANGEROUS,
not because of biological health hazard, but because of long-term addiction to behaviour,
which results in subhuman often excessively painful rebirths… So Nix to the Barbeque Fix!
Making a firm resolve and heavy doses of meditation (10 day retreat) is the antidote to both.

Question5: > Is the truth ultimately knowable by our human brain?

Answer5: First: Absolute Truths can only be known about some and not all objects!
Any material object eg. a door cannot be known absolutely, since it is basically not
a finite, but infinite object (both microscopically and macroscopically)…
Since it is infinite, then there will always remain unexplained aspects of the object…
Therefore can an explanation of a door and other material objects never be absolute!
However: How to pass out of a given door CAN indeed be explained absolutely!
Just imagine the closest door to you now. You can easily devise many different
explanations, which all ALWAYS unambiguously leads to passing out of the door,
and which therefore are absolute truths about that particular PURPOSE!
So Purposes CAN be explained absolutely. How to End Suffering => Noble 8-fold Way
is such an ABSOLUTELY TRUE EXPLANATION, which if followed ALWAYS succeeds.

Question6: > What constitutes Right View?

Answer6: Know there are 2 forms of right view. Mundane and supramundane. For Mundane Right view see:
http://what-buddha-said.net/drops/What_is_Right_View.htm Study the links.
The supramundane right view of a Noble is not communicable to any non-noble ordinary person.
They would not be able to understand it and often find such radical views absurd… Hehehe ;-)

Question7: > Whether or not the Buddha actually taught literal re-birth

Answer7: Many times did the Buddha teach literal rebirth see eg:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.135.than.html
The skillfulness of one's actions in life determine one's destination after death: Dhp 17, Dhp 18, Dhp 240
Causes of favorable or unfavorable rebirth: MN 135, AN 3.65, Dhp 310, Dhp 316
How to gain rebirth as an elephant or a horse: AN 10.177
The laws of kamma and rebirth are as inviolable as the law of gravity: SN 42.6
What's so bad about being reborn?: SN 5.6
Why not just settle for rebirth among the devas?: SN 5.7
The preciousness of our human birth: SN 20.2, SN 56.48
Rebirth witnessed by Buddha on the night of his Awakening: See Buddha's Awakening.
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/Rebirth.htm

Question8: > I try not to get too hung up on the issue of re-birth
Answer8: Believing in Annihilation is a fanatic religious view, which cannot be substantiated experimentally,
since no-one can ever return from annihilation and deliver a direct witness account of it…
Rebirth may IMHO (both as a medical doctor and as scientist) now be regarded as scientifically
underpinned by 60 years of unfortunately largely ignored research mostly by the late professor Ian Stevenson Virginia University:

http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/personalitystudies/
The research was difficult to publish, since it was not conferring to the conventional
paradigm of our quite ignorant, yet very proud times. This “Keeping Out” is standard
for new discoveries and very unscientific, unfortunately also very human…
Not so long ago people was decapitated for pointing out the earth was not flat,
but in fact: round… Life is -in fact- not a single shot, but a chain-reaction of rebirths…! 
EXAMINE this crucial issue by WATCHING: Eg. The Rutherford Institute:
https://www.youtube.com/user/RutherfordInstitute#p/search/0/YLKT5UsKoqM
http://www.ial.goldthread.com/clips/tucker.wmv
http://www.ial.goldthread.com/interviews.html

The Information is there USE & EXAMINE IT!
Question9: > I often feel like a failure and an outsider to those who are more diligent. Basically not worthy.

Answer9:’…
Why so? They, We, All beings have all been both ants and gods and whatever one can ever become:

The Thirty-one Planes of Existence
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sagga/loka.html

Question10> Did the Buddha ever answer the question of what makes sentient life, sentient?

Answer10: No not formulated as such. Yet sentient life is just a CONSEQUENCE of a FORCE
pushing nature into this form. This force is craving for sensations and sensing…
Remember: Consciousness is a form of non-local wave energy which has non-local ‘material’
effects just like any other electro-magnetic-radio-wave form of energy has effects!
(Which makes your mobile-phone work even far away from the speaker both in time and space)

Yet on a deeper dhamma note:
Sentient life is a not an individual but a process or activity of mere sensing.
The causality if this process of sensing contacts goes like this:
The condition of Ignorance causes Mental Construction to arise.
The condition of Mental Construction causes Consciousness to arise.
The condition of Consciousness causes Name-&-Form to arise.
The condition of Name-&-Form causes The 6 Senses to arise.
The condition of The 6 Senses causes Sentient Sense Contacts to arise.
This is Dependent Co-origination! A chain of conditioned effects that causes new events!
http://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/Cohesive_Co-Origination.htm

Have a nice & noble da y !

Friendship is the Greatest!
Bhikkhu Samāhita _/\_ 
http://What-Buddha-Said.net
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May all beings become thus Happy!
Friendship is the GREATEST!

Have a Nice Noble Day!

Bhikkhu Samahita
Ceylon