Freedom, free will, causality and chaos

[FmAm]

To me there isn’t such a thing as “free will”. It’s possible for anyone to feel the deep freedom in everything by means of meditation and mindful living, but there’s no “will” in freedom. Freedom is just plain freedom. The same freedom can be seen in the clouds moving across the sky and in my own thoughts and actions coming and going. Freedom is “a verb” without nouns. It isn’t anyone’s or anything’s possession. (And in the end, freedom is empty.)

 

What about causality? Right actions cause right actions and the other way around, or is it as simple as that? Whenever we separate our actions from the whole and view them as “that is because this was”, causality applies. What about the bigger picture? How do we know what happens ten years after because of our right actions? The chain of causality is infinite already seconds after our actions (actually it's instantly infinite). There is no way of knowing the “results” unless we name and limit them.

 

Anyhow, I have to live my life believing in free will and in the positive results of my positive actions. At the same time I have to understand (deep down) that everything that happens (once more: including all my thoughts and actions) is essentially out of my control.

 

Any thoughts?

Edited March 28, 2013 by FmAm

[ThisLife]

To me there isn’t such a thing as “free will”. It’s possible for anyone to feel the deep freedom in everything by means of meditation and mindful living, but there’s no “will” in freedom. Freedom is just plain freedom. The same freedom can be seen in the clouds moving across the sky and in my own thoughts and actions coming and going. Freedom is “a verb” without nouns. It isn’t anyone’s or anything’s possession. (And in the end, freedom is empty.)

 

What about causality? Right actions cause right actions and the other way around, or is it as simple as that? Whenever we separate our actions from the whole and view them as “that is because this was”, causality applies. What about the bigger picture? How do we know what happens ten years after because of our right actions? The chain of causality is infinite already seconds after our actions (actually it's instantly infinite). There is no way of knowing the “results” unless we name and limit them.

 

Anyhow, I have to live my life believing in free will and in the positive results of my positive actions. At the same time I have to understand (deep down) that everything that happens (once more: including all my thoughts and actions) is essentially out of my control.

 

Any thoughts?

 

*

 

It sounds like both our minds have taken turns down the same interesting pathway in this most ancient of man's quests,... trying to understand how and why this life is the way it is. My own journey has dropped me off, (about ten years back), in a state of fascination at talks given by two different Non-Duality teachers. One was an American, Wayne Liquorman, and the other an Englishman, Richard Sylvester. I'll copy you an extract from one of Richard's talks below. Perhaps he'll make a connection with you. For me, at least, there's always a reassurance to discover that one is not alone. Some of these queer spiritual pathways can, (after the initial excitement of a new discovery has worn off), leave you feeling cut off from normal social relationships and in need of friends along the way :

 

 

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{Q} : I would like to ask you whether the life of a person is already written in advance.

 

{A} : No, the life of a person is not written in advance, because there is no person who has a life. As soon as we start speculating that our lives may be written in advance, we engage with a story which takes us away from presence, from the miracle that is 'this'. We might also notice that the idea that our life is written in advance is only one of many different possible stories. Why should we choose that story rather than any of the others?

 

When it is seen that there is no person who has a life, our fascination with stories about the future or the past tends to drop away and what is left is this ever-changing play of consciousness.

 

{Q} : But I think that what we have to experience from birth to death is already written when we are born.

 

{A} : That is a story which appeals to many people. There are other appealing stories, such as that we can create the reality that we desire through understanding and practising 'the laws of attraction', or that we should accumulate good karma and avoid accumulating bad karma.

 

But what I am pointing to is that there is no person who has a life, or who creates their own reality, or who accumulates or avoids karma. And there is no birth or death or time. All there is, is this,... whatever is apparently manifesting in Oneness. This present outpouring of unconditional love.

 

The mind lives in a world of time and of cause and effect, so it cannot help asking “Why?” It is its inescapable fate. The mind loves to entertain itself with questions about meaning and purpose and it creates ever-greater complexity in its answers so that it can silence its doubts. Its answers may be religious or spiritual or existential. They are immensely varied and colourful, and they often contradict one another. If one of them appeals to you then, by all means hold on to it. But meanwhile the joy of presence is likely to be missed and this moment become a shadow drained of energy and glimpsed only through a veil of speculation about meaning and the future.

 

You can have stories about meaning, purpose and endeavour,... or you can have presence. The simplicity of leaves rustling in the breeze. You cannot have both.

*

 

Edited March 29, 2014 by ThisLife

[silent thunder]

I don't put much into the idea of free will either.

 

The idea of free anything, is counter-intuitive to me as nothing exists as an independent 'thing' which is free of anything else. Even the clouds mentioned in the OP are formed, moved and dispersed by existing conditions.

 

Will has the disposition of some imposition of intent. But this intent is formed and triggered by existing conditions.

 

edit: instead of free will, I say we experience reactions to existing conditions.

Edited March 29, 2014 by silent thunder

[Maddie]

In discussing the topic of free will with my friends I point out that if the will was truly free then there would not be addictions.

[ThisLife]

In discussing the topic of free will with my friends I point out that if the will was truly free then there would not be addictions.

 

*

 

Do you believe in free will ?

 

“Of course, I have no choice.”

 

 

Isaac Bashevis Singer

*

[dawei]

This seems a 'General' topic rather than Buddhist subforum.

 

Can FmAm relate if this was mean for Buddhist discussion?

[thelerner]

I think

The more awake you are.

The more cultural conditioning you've shed.

The more free will you have.

[ThisLife]

This seems a 'General' topic rather than Buddhist subforum.

 

Can FmAm relate if this was mean for Buddhist discussion?

 

*

 

It seems quite an extraordinary viewpoint to take on Buddhism, that a discussion of free will, (or any topic whatsoever, for that matter), is somehow "outside the domain of Buddhist philosophy". It strikes me that in order to think this way one must either prefer a very narrow and limited concept of Buddhism, or else be the kind of individual who like everything neatly pigeon-holed and labelled inside tidy boxes.

 

There's an interesting poem I came across in one of Wayne Liquorman's books, in which he puts this way of thinking into verse :

 

*

 

*

 

 

As you walk the

 

Spiritual path

 

It widens

 

Not narrows

 

Until one day

 

It broadens

 

To a point

 

Where

 

There is no

 

Path left at all.

 

*

 

 

[Rara]

I am to and throw with this. There was another free will topic a while ago that you might find interesting. Simply search the forum

 

Sure. We still have choices that we can make...but I'm not 100% convinved these choices are our own. For example...

[Rara]

In discussing the topic of free will with my friends I point out that if the will was truly free then there would not be addictions.

...continued

 

Is an addict an addict because that's just what they are? Do they just like that drug? Is it really a bad thing?

 

Or, does that person have the strengh to overcome it? Do those that overcome it, is it just their fate to do so?

[Marblehead]

Taoists have free will, Buddhists don't. It's just that simple.

[GrandmasterP]

Taoist-Buddhists tend to keep their options open rather than seek conclusive answers to free will and related topics.

Vita contingit. Vive cum eo.

(Life happens. Live with it.)

 

 

There are plenty of Taoist shrines in Buddhist Temples East of Suez.

Edited March 30, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Rara]

Taoists have free will, Buddhists don't. It's just that simple.

Lol

[Rara]

Taoist-Buddhists tend to keep their options open rather than seek conclusive answers to free will and related topics.

Vita contingit. Vive cum eo.

(Life happens. Live with it.)

 

 

There are plenty of Taoist shrines in Buddhist Temples East of Suez.

Yes, in modern days, the religions have merged some ideas and practices.

[GrandmasterP]

Yes, in modern days, the religions have merged some ideas and practices.

For sure and that's healthy.

There's a link to an academic paper elsewhere about just how soon and how enthusiastically people began cherry picking from the various faith paths.

Tao merged with Chan merged with ancestor worship merged with Shamanism.

Your modern 'ethnic' Taoist East of Suez is no different really to her ancestors.

A bit of Tao

Maybe a tad of Pure Land chanting.

If there's a monk pops round for a chat , cuppa tea and a donation he'll likely be from one of the Chan sects.

He'll honour the ancestor shrine in passing.

Our modern Taoist lady might go with her friends to see a fortune teller or watch a Shaman show.

Everyone celebrates everyone else's festivals including Christmas.

That sort of pragmatic syncretism has been around from the get go.

TTB reifies a syncretic Western 'Taoism+ extras' amongst much else.

That whole 'one true faith ' idea is on loan from post- Constantinian Christianity whence the Moslems also got it.

Edited March 30, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Rara]

For sure and that's healthy.

There's a link to an academic paper elsewhere about just how soon and how enthusiastically people began cherry picking from the various faith paths.

Tao merged with Chan merged with ancestor worship merged with Shamanism.

Your modern 'ethnic' Taoist East of Suez is no different really to her ancestors.

A bit of Tao

Maybe a tad of Pure Land chanting.

If there's a monk pops round for a chat , cuppa tea and a donation he'll likely be from one of the Chan sects.

He'll honour the ancestor shrine in passing.

Our modern Taoist lady might go with her friends to see a fortune teller or watch a Shaman show.

Everyone celebrates everyone else's festivals including Christmas.

That sort of pragmatic syncretism has been around from the get go.

TTB reifies a syncretic Western 'Taoism+ extras' amongst much else.

That whole 'one true faith ' idea is on loan from post- Constantinian Christianity whence the Moslems also got it.

Thanks you for elaborating...I didn't know so much in depth info myself!

 

My friend came back from Malaysia and showed me photos of temples from "Chinese religion" as he called it haha. He wouldn't say Taoism or Buddhism...there were various shrines with many things going on.

[GrandmasterP]

Thanks you for elaborating...I didn't know so much in depth info myself!

My friend came back from Malaysia and showed me photos of temples from "Chinese religion" as he called it haha. He wouldn't say Taoism or Buddhism...there were various shrines with many things going on.

Yep.

Those guys have got it sussed.

Use what works and never mind the labels.

Vietnamese Buddhism's a bit like that, very ecumenical with Zen plus Pure Land plus folk religion plus a dash of Taoism etc.

Thich Nhat Hanh's the lad for Vietnamese pragmatism.

Edited March 30, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[GrandmasterP]

Shingon ( Tantric Buddhism) has fused with Candomble ( voodoo) and Spiritism in Brazil.

http://www.globalbuddhism.org/4/shoji032.htm

[FmAm]

"There is free action, there is retribution, but I see no agent that passes out of one set

of momentary elements into another one, except the [connection] of those elements." -Buddha

 

 

There is freedom, but there is no one in control. No one using that freedom. No agent. Things just flow, freely. Things appear as things, freedom happens. Freedom is experienced, not utilised.

 

This point of view is called "hard incompatibilism" or "pessimistic incompatibilism" in western philosophy.

Edited October 18, 2014 by FmAm

[FmAm]

There's a link to an academic paper elsewhere about just how soon and how enthusiastically people began cherry picking from the various faith paths.

There has never been "pure religion" or "pure truth". As soon as someone announces "the truth", he or she is picking cherries. As soon as someone is seeking the truth, he or she is seeking the cherries. What else life is about but seeking and picking cherries?

Edited October 19, 2014 by FmAm

[Marblehead]

Freedom is experienced, not utilised.

Indeed. "Using" our freedom is by its own nature a misuse of it.

[PLB]

Freedom vs Causality is one way to think about choices. The framework appears in large expressions of what is the ultimate (like a theology) as well as much smaller objectives to separate options from the inevitable. My tiny mind cannot synthesize what having the notion appear in such different neighborhoods mean. I am pretty sure they are different locations, though.

 

So I take more of a center out approach. If I am a prisoner wearing chains in a ship somewhere, I am a lot less free than someone who can make a choice amongst a limited set of possibilities in a society shaped by bias and the power of favor. If I am able to have enough freedom to spend a significant portion of my energy to do what I think is right, then I become a player in the field of conditions. There are degrees of freedom and when we are given something like a range of possibility, we may or may not take advantage of it.

 

In the Christian tradition, the definition I am most attracted to is that formulated by Kierkegaard: Freedom is the abilty to do. The formulation accepts that many other factors have to be happening for it to be possible. But if you don't actually take responsibility for being the one who acts, there is nothing. And more than that, a submission to the nothing.

 

You have made your choice.

[woodcarver]

I have also been pondering this recently. Maybe since there's no good or bad, there are only effects. Not good or bad effects from good or bad causes. Total chaos that we sometimes label this or that.

 

Can we control anything?

[Marblehead]

I have also been pondering this recently. Maybe since there's no good or bad, there are only effects. Not good or bad effects from good or bad causes. Total chaos that we sometimes label this or that.

 

Can we control anything?

Them thar be deep thoughts.

 

What really caught my attention was your use of the word "chaos". (We likely agree regarding cause and effect.)

 

But chaos, yeah, that is interesting when included in a discussion of "free will".

 

We really have no idea when our "free will" plans of effecting cause and effect will be shattered by some unforeseen chaotic event. And yes, there are many chaotic events that occur in our life. That's when we say, "Shit happens."

 

This is where we must learn to let go of those things we cannot control.

[steve]

If you think that you have free will, try not thinking for an hour.