Buddhism And Free Will

[Xangsamhua]

The question of Free Will is one that has vexed philosophers and thinking people generally for a long time.

In theistic religions, free will is generally assumed, even if one's eventual destiny (salvation or damnation) is either foreordained or at least known to God. God's non-intervention in the actions of one who by virtue of which is headed for damnation, constitutes a form of negative predestination that one can do nothing about. After all, if God is omniscient and omnipotent, one cannot bargain with God.

That is one view, a view we normally associate in Christendom with Calvin and St Augustine. The more benign view, the one we associate with other Christian theologians and churches, gives man a capacity to make choices that are genuinely free, even allowing for the conditions that affect them.

Other philosophers, e.g. Spinoza and Schopenhauer, argued that man does not have free will, even though he thinks he has. The denial of free will is very counter-intuitive, especially if we believe we have a Self that is managing our lives for us.

Buddhism, though it is very focused on interdependent causation and the denial of the Self, in absolute terms, would seem to lend itself to denial of the reality of free will. However, the doctrine of karma, which is central to classical and popular Buddhism, is really dependent on the mechanism of free will, even to the extent that non-rational beings, such as animals, can by their moral actions be reborn in a higher or lower state.

I find this hard to integrate with a body of teachings that gives so much emphasis to causation. Especially, in the light of a general Buddhist belief in Infinity (no beginning-no end), one's apparent free choice in acting is so caught up in an endless web of cause and effect (Indhra's Net) that it's hard to imagine a genuinely free act of the will being possible, especially if there is no self to engineer it.

[rockyysdt]

In many respects free will is an illusion.

We all travel through life encumbered by the baggage of our conditioning.

Choices we make are controlled by a myriad of influences we carry in our subconscious.

Perhaps the make up of our conditioning is determined to some extent by our previous khamma.

In this way we become exposed to specific scenarios which result from our conditioned actions.

I think the answer is not what we choose to do, but our ability to view our choices without attachment.

Edited September 25, 2010 by rockyysdt

[Joop50]

A view of Advaita Vedanta is like this: When a baby arrives in this world it is completely happy. Parents give it a name and then after 2-3 years "I" comes in the picture.

This is the moment of seperation, duality and suffering take place. That's why there is the search for happiness during the whole life of a human being, because he or she knows how it looks like.

The awareness has not disappeared (impossible of course) but the mind has taken the lead. Ego, mind, thoughts are all the same denomination for this phenomenon.

The question I did my meditation on for a long time was: Who am I? Where is that "I"? Is there an "I" anyway?

God or Consiousness and all the different names for the Highest, is in most religions considered as an object wich it isn't, it is Subject.

To Rockyysdt, I think the answer is not what we choose to do, but our ability to view our choices without attachment. Yes Indeed. So there is seeing, not I see and there is hearing, not I hear.

When we try to practice this something changes in our view.

Edited September 25, 2010 by Joop50

[canuckamuck]

With no free will how can you accumulate karma? Is it the case in Buddhism that life is choiceless and all the suffering just comes and you can do nothing to escape it? Certainly this makes enlightenment impossible.

[Xangsamhua]

With no free will how can you accumulate karma? Is it the case in Buddhism that life is choiceless and all the suffering just comes and you can do nothing to escape it? Certainly this makes enlightenment impossible.

Yes, karma needs free will; otherwise there is no karma either as a consequence of moral or simply wise action. Buddhism insists on the radical possibility of free will, extending it to animals. The question is: How in a universe based on action and result governed by laws of cause and effect, can one step aside from the inexorability of causation to act freely? I don't know what the Buddha said. I see no reference to "free will" or even "will" in Maurice Walshe's translation of the long discourses of the Buddha.

Leibnitz said that freedom of the will resided in the will's intentions rather than its freedom from the constraints of causation. I take this to mean that one may not be free to escape the laws of causation (the Principle of Sufficient Reason**) in performing acts, but that the efficient cause, i.e. the proximate cause, is neutralised by the final cause (the purpose for which one acts in the longer run). Perhaps that's the answer in terms of karmic effect - an act that is objectively wicked (and hence would accrue negative karmic 'fruits') is nevertheless ameliorated proportionally to the extent that the wicked act was performed with some kind of good intention, misguided as it might be. Hence, in Schopenhauer's presentation of Sufficient Reason, the fourth principle (below) may be the escape clause for karma.

** Principle of Sufficient Reason (Schopenhauer):

1. Principle of Sufficient Reason of Becoming

If a new state of one or several real objects appears, another state must have preceded it upon which the new state follows regularly.

2. Principle of Sufficient Reason of Knowing

If a judgment is to express a piece of knowledge, it must have a sufficient ground. By virtue of this quality, it receives the predicate true. Truth is therefore the reference of a judgment to something different therefrom.

3. Principle of Sufficient Reason of Being

The position of every object in space and the succession of every object in time is conditioned by another object's position in space and succession in time.

4. Principle of Sufficient Reason of Acting

Every human decision is the result of an object that necessarily determines the human's will by functioning as a motive.

(Wikipedia: Principle of Sufficient Reason)

[Joop50]

With no free will how can you accumulate karma? Is it the case in Buddhism that life is choiceless and all the suffering just comes and you can do nothing to escape it? Certainly this makes enlightenment impossible.

About karma, it is from the mind. There is only Now. Because there is only Now and past and future take place in the mind it not really exist. Karma has to do with past and future so it cannot exist except in the mind.

Choices have to be made in life, only for enlightenment (in nonduality one speaks of Self-realisation) it is important to have a good understanding of Who is it that makes the choices. In other words, who is the do-er?

There are many paradoxes in Non-Duality, think about this:

The Awareness to where one search for, needs Awareness to search. Such as the eye that sees cannot see itself. That what observes can never observe itselves. There is only one Awareness.

Awareness/Consciousness is not a thing. The concept gives no substance. It is not an object that can be perceived. And yet it is the source and substance of everything we do.

[phetaroi]

You all are making a very fine argument in favor of the premise that Buddhism does not have all the answers.

[Joop50]

You all are making a very fine argument in favor of the premise that Buddhism does not have all the answers.

So? I try to tell something about Nonduality or in Sanskrit Advaita.

Very difficult because at the same time there is knowing that I know nothing.

[rockyysdt]

You all are making a very fine argument in favor of the premise that Buddhism does not have all the answers.

I don't think it's Buddhism which doesn't have all the answers but rather its practioners.

Unenlightened beings can never know such answers.

The Buddhist theory is that these things will be revealed after successful practice of the eightfold path.

What Buddhism does teach is the practice needed in order to reach such a state in which all will be known.

Edited September 25, 2010 by rockyysdt

[Xangsamhua]

You all are making a very fine argument in favor of the premise that Buddhism does not have all the answers.

Yes, I don't think anyone's got all the answers. It helps, though, if a systematic body of teaching is consistent within itself.

Perhaps, as Joop says, karma is all in the mind and if the mind has no past or future, then free will's not really an issue - nor any kind of will, I suppose. I'd be interested to hear what others say.

[canuckamuck]

About karma, it is from the mind. There is only Now. Because there is only Now and past and future take place in the mind it not really exist. Karma has to do with past and future so it cannot exist except in the mind.

So no need to fear karma then, as it does not exist.

Choices have to be made in life, only for enlightenment (in nonduality one speaks of Self-realisation) it is important to have a good understanding of Who is it that makes the choices. In other words, who is the do-er?

There are many paradoxes in Non-Duality, think about this:

The Awareness to where one search for, needs Awareness to search. Such as the eye that sees cannot see itself. That what observes can never observe itselves.

This is not true I can see myself in the mirror, in my actions, in my effect on others. I know what color my eyes are, I have seen them.

[camerata]

We've already had several big threads on this topic. For example:

Free will and karma

Is there free will in Buddhism

Does anyone have a credible Canonical reference that animals generate kamma vipaka?

[canuckamuck]

Does anyone have a credible Canonical reference that animals generate kamma vipaka?

I want to know this too, In my likely flawed assumption, animals cannot formulate intent in the complex way a human can. I would think that this would make them much less likely to accrue karma. But if only humans can accrue karma, what exactly is going on with animals? Are they just living and dying on some waiting list to be human again (where sadly they will increase their karma) or do some of them skip being human altogether? Vegetarian animals likely do a better job of keeping the five precepts than humans do. But it depends on how you define sexual misconduct for animals.

Have all animals spent time as humans?

[Xangsamhua]

We've already had several big threads on this topic. For example:

Free will and karma

Is there free will in Buddhism

Does anyone have a credible Canonical reference that animals generate kamma vipaka?

I don't, I'm afraid. I think I got the idea from the Jataka stories.

(I searched "Free Will" on the forum page and those topics didn't come up. )

[Xangsamhua]

We've already had several big threads on this topic. For example:

Free will and karma

Is there free will in Buddhism

Does anyone have a credible Canonical reference that animals generate kamma vipaka?

The previous threads are quite extensive. Still, the same questions arise anew in different contexts and from different stimuli. Hence new threads are apt.

With regard to to any "credible" canonical texts suggesting that animals generate kamma vipaka (same as karma-phala?), the best I can come up with is:

"And what is the diversity in kamma? There is kamma to be experienced in hel_l, kamma to be experienced in the realm of common animals, kamma to be experienced in the realm of the hungry shades, kamma to be experienced in the human world, kamma to be experienced in the world of the devas. This is called the diversity in kamma." Nibbedhika Sutta AN 6.63 PTS: A iii 410

http://www.accesstoi...han.html#part-5

cited in Access to Insight at

http://www.accesstoi...tthi/kamma.html

I assume that kamma as experienced in the realm of common animals implies that this realm is generated by and generates kamma vipaka. If not, it would be a fixed state to which the law of kamma does not apply. It would be, in karmic terms, a state of being on a level with inanimate beings - trees and water, rocks and all their component parts. Animals without the capacity for moral intention in some form would not generate karmic fruits.

[rockyysdt]

I assume that kamma as experienced in the realm of common animals implies that this realm is generated by and generates kamma vipaka. If not, it would be a fixed state to which the law of kamma does not apply. It would be, in karmic terms, a state of being on a level with inanimate beings - trees and water, rocks and all their component parts. Animals without the capacity for moral intention in some form would not generate karmic fruits.

Alternatively it could be a state of being from which karmic fruits generated from previous negative khamma (previous incarnations or births) can be expended.

This allows the text "And what is the diversity in kamma? Kamma to be experienced in the realm of common animals," to hold .

If an animal lives purely by instinct then new negative khamma would not be possible however the animal can suffer.

Maybe varying levels of free will within the animal world are dependent and increase with the level of brain evolution, some living purely on instinct whilst others having a degree of higher consciousness and free will.

Edited September 26, 2010 by rockyysdt

[Xangsamhua]

I assume that kamma as experienced in the realm of common animals implies that this realm is generated by and generates kamma vipaka. If not, it would be a fixed state to which the law of kamma does not apply. It would be, in karmic terms, a state of being on a level with inanimate beings - trees and water, rocks and all their component parts. Animals without the capacity for moral intention in some form would not generate karmic fruits.

Alternatively it could be a state of being from which karmic fruits generated from previous negative khamma (previous incarnations or births) can be expended.

This allows the text "And what is the diversity in kamma? Kamma to be experienced in the realm of common animals," to hold .

If an animal lives purely by instinct then new negative khamma would not be possible however the animal can suffer.

I think that's what I meant by "generated by ... kamma vipaka." You are suggesting that the life of an animal is a kind of purgatory where, over time, previous karma is expiated and no new karma is generated. If so, I wonder what law or calculation determines the amount of time one must spend in this state before the karma is cancelled out.

Maybe varying levels of free will within the animal world are dependent and increase with the level of brain evolution, some living purely on instinct whilst others having a degree of higher consciousness and free will.

Could be. I suppose animal psychologists can tell us about the levels of rationality available to different species, e.g. dolphins, apes, parrots, which I gather have a level of human-like intelligence in some respects, but I'm not sure how one would ascend through rebirth from, say, a sea slug to a crab to a bird, etc.

[dutchguest]

For me both are true: as well determination as freedom. You are free if you do what you have to do. You are free if you live in accordance with the laws of nature. And if you don't live in accordance you will suffer.

Following this line of thought: animals are free but they don't know, they are not aware. In the human species nature becomes aware of itself. This has turned into an alianation from nature and into dualism. Nature and the awareness of it become two different, separated "things" and the mind thinks it is free, has nothing to do with nature, is essentially of a different quality, while nature is ruled by laws of cause and effect. This dualism creates a "false" idea of self which thinks it stands above nature, is free from the laws of cause and effect and can act unpunished against nature.

The effort of Buddha to end suffering means he has transcended this dualism and overcome the alianation from nature. You can say he has become an animal again, a conscious animal this time, on a higher level, no more trying to escape the laws of cause and effect.

Concerning karma: I do not believe in a personal rebirth as I and most people can not remember anything of past lives. Of course ones actions have an effect on future generations as well as on oneself during ones lifetime. (But if there is no "I", or the idea of an "I" is just a delusion, a dream, then that problem is also solved: then "you" are everybody who has ever lived or will ever live?)

May be in the filosofical sense there is no freedom or the problem can not be solved, but for daily life use I think it is best we can hold everybody responsable for his own actions; anything else would be a denial of the other persons existence. So common sense is of more use here then sofisticated rationalisations on determination.

[christiaan]

A fish is free in the ocean, but will die on land. A horse is free on land but will die in the ocean.

Everyone is free within his or her faculties and so freedom differs from one person to another.

Some people are more free as other people.

Some people are locked up in prisons and are more free as there guards.

Some people are more free as the so called teachers.

Theories, doctrines, dogma's do not make people free.

Freedom is within the spiritual activity of the aware I, without awareness there cannot be real freedom.

[canuckamuck]

A fish is free in the ocean, but will die on land. A horse is free on land but will die in the ocean.

Everyone is free within his or her faculties and so freedom differs from one person to another.

Some people are more free as other people.

Some people are locked up in prisons and are more free as there guards.

Some people are more free as the so called teachers.

Theories, doctrines, dogma's do not make people free.

Freedom is within the spiritual activity of the aware I, without awareness there cannot be real freedom.

I think you are confusing the freedom to choose, with the conditions of your life. Even a horse in the ocean can make choices, perhaps not moral ones though.

If one was aware could he do anything, or perhaps he would be required to do nothing.

[dutchguest]

I do not agree with your subscript.

I once heard a story of a Zenmaster who was asked what enlightenment is. He said: eat when you are hungry, sleep when you are sleepy.It sounds simple but live in accordance with nature is at this moment in history the most difficult thing to do. We have forgotten our nature and have develloped all kind of habits and conditionings which sit very deep and are hard to overcome. They make us act most of the time in a compulsive and superficial way, like programmed robots. Unaware of the here and now, living in dreams of past and future.

In the animal kingdom we do not see excessively thick creatures unless they are domesticated and programmed by humans. Smoking causes suffering, it is no natural behaviour, God did not give us a chimney. Nevertheless it can be a habit which is very hard to overcome (and I speak out of experience). So you are free if you can live according to your true nature. And you suffer and are not free if you cannot stop eating while you are not hungry, or if you cannot sleep if you are sleepy.

You cannot solve this by eating what you don't like. It makes things worse.

[rockyysdt]

We have forgotten our nature and have developed all kind of habits and conditioning which sit very deep and are hard to overcome. They make us act most of the time in a compulsive and superficial way, like programmed robots. Unaware of the here and now, living in dreams of past and future.

Totally agree.

We carry our conditioning through life and it controls our choices.

There are countless examples of people believing they are exercising free will when in actual fact their choice has been dictated by conditioning.

Without awareness and self awareness there is no free will.

I've been going through a stressful period during which my limited time has meant my practice and exercise regime have taken a back seat. I'm mindful of my conditioning coming to the fore causing me to behave and react in ways I abhor.

Regular sitting meditation and exercise gives me the composure and poise to detach from conditioning or allow me the time to recognize it before acting or reacting.

At this point in time l envy those who choose the Monkhood allowing them the luxury of full time devotion to practice.

Edited September 26, 2010 by rockyysdt

[canuckamuck]

Believe me, I am trying to understand this, but obviously there are many schools of thought.

If I am to understand what you mean by freedom, I would sum it up to say that we are free (from suffering) when we act in ways that are naturally correct, and this correctness was from long ago.

Anything we do now which is out of step with our ancient ways leads us to disharmony. In short, we need to devolve back to some ancestral pre human.

So basically all that is human is in error except the basics of kill, eat, mate, sleep. And this is where we will will return when we are aware? I would describe this as unaware. I would not call this free, rather I would call it fitting a program. The very opposite of freedom.

[fabianfred]

Personally I believe that animals can still create new karma....although they are also expending old negative karma which got them into that realm.

If a tiger kills animals in order to eat, do they not suffer....and so causing suffering surely creates new karma.

I have this opinion because I heard that escape from the animal realm to return to the human realm is extremely difficult...to the extent that it is preferable to be reborn in hel_l, which, although the suffering is more extreme is relatively short-lived compared with time spent in the animal realms.

I therefore came to the conclusion that animals must still create karma....but less than a human who has more choice and intelligence.

By this process a jungle-dweller would accrue more karma for killing animals than the tiger would....but a city dweller who merely hunts for sport would accrue even more karma for the same act.

[canuckamuck]

Would a cat playing with a mouse before he eats it gain karma? It is natural for the cat.

[dutchguest]

Believe me, I am trying to understand this, but obviously there are many schools of thought.

If I am to understand what you mean by freedom, I would sum it up to say that we are free (from suffering) when we act in ways that are naturally correct, and this correctness was from long ago.

Anything we do now which is out of step with our ancient ways leads us to disharmony. In short, we need to devolve back to some ancestral pre human.

So basically all that is human is in error except the basics of kill, eat, mate, sleep. And this is where we will will return when we are aware? I would describe this as unaware. I would not call this free, rather I would call it fitting a program. The very opposite of freedom.

I agree I could have expressed myself a little bit clearer now and then but basically what I say is the same as Buddha said, namely that man has lost, forgotten his true nature. And that he is suffering because of that.There is no way back, and it is not needed too. We "only" have to wake up and be aware.

With the examples about eating and sleeping I was trying to make things a little bit more concrete; they are not the whole story of course.

[camerata]

In the ultimate sense there is only one type of person who is truly free. No-one, nothing, no place, no condition, can ever enslave that type of person. We call such a person an enlightened being, a liberated being. Note the words themselves - liberation is a synonym for freedom. In the ultimate sense we refer to such a person as a liberated one, one who has attained to liberation, one who has attained to freedom. No person or situation can ever enslave such a mind or condition it, sending it up to heaven or down to hel_l, or cause it to get lost in craving, aversion or confusion. That mind we call the liberated mind.

[...]

It is very important to understand that we are as yet not free. Though we live in a society that is free in the conventional sense, we are not free, because our minds are not yet free. As long as we are unenlightened, we are all afflicted by craving and desire, wanting and thirst, the need to have this or that. Is your mind free when it is still afflicted by such movements, such compulsions, such obsessions? Can you say you are free when things can make you angry and miserable, when people can make you experience hatred and irritation, when situations can make you depressed and miserable? Can you say that you are free? Of course not. If you were free you would certainly not experience any of these negative states.

[...]

Our heart, our mind, is the place where the enslavement ultimately begins and ends. This is where we have the ultimate choice. We cannot control all external conditions, it's not possible. As I said, even enlightened people can be incarcerated, crippled and restricted externally. They can't control everything; but the mind, that is a different matter.

Internally, there is a choice, but very few can claim that right and make that choice. It requires training, and only when the training is complete does one have ultimate freedom.

- Ajahn Jagaro, True Freedom

[canuckamuck]

OK, I see what you are saying. So freedom is not freedom to act, rather freedom from being affected.

I think being enlightened would seriously inhibit your actions though.

[christiaan]

It could be merely a theory that a person is free when enlighted, and I think it is.

In my opinion everyone is free within the faculties he, she or it lives in and at the same time limited by it living within the borders of those faculties.

And the history of humanity shows we did come a long way and will go a long way - on earth - to more and more freedom regarding material life.

Just realise we are communicating with a computer 'talking' in a situation in wich we are not in eachothers presence to hear the words we write now.

We did expand and are expanding the faculties of human life and that is not an illusion but experience .

There are levels of freedom and they differ for every organism on earth.

An 'enlighted' person, and persons striving for enlightment, are by the development of their " I " free from a lot of conditions but as long as those persons are living on earth being 'enlighted' or striving to become, they will not be free in the flesh.

Those persons have to eat, drink and breath, and go to the toilet and sometimes become sick.

So a living enlighted person, as people striving for this, is not free while living on earth.

Only enlighted people could tell about their experiences of being free when totally free. There are no totally free people living on earth.

Cos when this person would tell about this personal experiences it is a person living in the flesh and breathing. Only people who go through enlighted 'moments' could tell but there are no words to describe this experience as it is and then these people are not totally free.

I doubt if there is any total freedom anywhere at the moment not in the material world nor in the spiritual world.

Now, at this point in human history, it is merely an imagination and illusion of humans thinking being totally free is the ultimate happiness.

I would say such kind of a concept of freedom, is just an effect of the unaware conditioned human mind driven by lower sense desires.

The 'absolute' freedom some people talk about, have a desire for, is just " being free from material existence, hopefully without any conditioning left ", thinking that would be the ultimate freedom.

Beside the fact that striving for this is in about the most situations an act of selfinvolvement, creating new Karma, at the other side of the treshold of life there is another world, a spiritual world and this world has its own spiritual laws ands its own spiritual cause and effect.

.

[Joop50]

The mind, the ego is the imposter.

To see that is a first step to enlightenment.

I wrote it before, everyone is already enlightend, one only think they are not.

Then, there are many ways to enlightenment. If you like to follow the way of Theravada Buddhism, go ahead nothing wrong with that..

But it is as far as I know, not a direct way. Dzogchen is known as the direct way. Zen (or Chinese Chan) is also recommendable.

Enlightenment is not allocated to Bhuddism. Even Christianity littered many enlightend persons. (google Anthony de Mello)

And somethimes it happen just like that to someone.

Enlightenment has no rules, religion created rules.

So I read many contradictions in this thread, but it is all thinking.

Forget all your ideas you have created about enlightenment because it is not true.

You will not become special, a saint or whatever, you are what you are. But there will be liberation.

And about free will, let it be, try to look at it like this: The person is never free. As Awareness, we are never bound.

"Nearly all mankind is more or less unhappy

because nearly all do not know the true Self.

Real happiness abides in

Self-knowledge alone

All else is fleeting

To know one's Self

is to be blissful always."

Ramana Maharshi