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What do Buddhists mean when they say people don't have choice because of karma?
What do Buddhists mean when they say people don't have choice because of karma? Could this very concept be used to take away freedom? Because if they have no choice because of karma would it not matter if they had their freedom taken away from them as they are not really free because of karma?
I think people do choose for themseleves but how we choose is influenced by experience. I don't think this makes a person less free, just a different perspective based on a different experience.
So what do Buddhists mean when they say people don't have choice because of karma?
Do Buddhists believe that we do not have free will?
I think people do choose for themseleves but how we choose is influenced by experience. I don't think this makes a person less free, just a different perspective based on a different experience.
So what do Buddhists mean when they say people don't have choice because of karma?
Do Buddhists believe that we do not have free will?
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I come from Vajrayana, and as far as I know Theravada is pretty much the same about it, but...
In Vajrayana (by my understanding of it), karma is based on free choices that create "up" or "down" momentum in the continuum of consciousness. It's a question of good or bad mental habits or personal habits or life choices that tend to lead to similar bad choices in the same lifetime. For instance, if you drink and gamble and carouse as a matter of free choice, you're more inclined to keep drinking and gambling and carousing until you make a free choice to do whatever it takes to break those habits and replace them with new ones.
So the same is true (for me) of what happens between lifetimes. If I have done something in this lifetime to create a drag on my continuum of consciousness and don't do something to release that drag on my continuum of consciousness before I die, then supposedly my continuum of consciousness will not reincarnate as fortunately as it would have if I had less "baggage" going into the next incarnation.
But free choice is an essential part of the process. It's not a this-for-that kind of thing, that is, nobody's keeping score exactly. It's a matter of tendencies in the continuum of consciousness. Build a good sailboat or a good airplane, and it will get you where you want to go. Build bad ones, then you have to start over until you get it right.
So:
"What do Buddhists mean when they say people don't have choice because of karma?"
I don't know, because no Buddhist that I know says that. And
Do Buddhists believe that we do not have free will?
None that I know.
Karma is statistic. Even if all past karma will come to fruition there is no telling when. Think of it as a Markov-process.
Also current disposition and action (karma) weighs in. so it is not only the past karma that deternimes what happens now.
Therefore Buddhist Karma is non-deterministic. As already stated.
Deterministic Karma was something the Buddha refuted.
/Victor
Because karma is mistaken for fate.
Karma is intention. Karma leads to action or movement in thought, speech and action. Karma has consequences (vipaka).
It would. But as it's not a concept we ascribe to, the question is academic....
'They'? Aren't 'you' in this too? Why is it always someone else? If you include 'you' in this, would you say you have never exercised free choice? Do you feel deprived of your freedom to make a choice?
Fine. Except even people with long experience make wrong choices, repeatedly. What do you make of that?
I keep asking you - and have done in other threads... when you make a statement like "Buddhists mean" you need to provide a reference. because I have never heard (Buddhist) people say this. I think you just throw in a question about Karma and free will from your own mistaken viewpoint, and say you've heard some people say it.
I used to do this all the time, until I realised that it actually got me nowhere.
So where exactly did you hear Buddhists say this?
No. They don't.
I hope these posts answer your questions.
Some members have taken the scholarly route.
I'd read up on what they've given you to read.
Links and references.
Take note.
I have no idea what they mean. I would never say, and I have never heard any Buddhists say that. The whole path to enlightenment is about free will and how one chooses to exercise it.
The only person I ever heard say she didn't have a choice because of karma is someone who is not a Buddhist, not interested in Buddhism, and believes that everything is predestined.
This Buddhist would never say that.
I'm just waiting for BuddhaOdin to tell me where he's heard it and from whom.
I suspect it's a self-made question, myself.
No. Come on, Fed.;)
The thing is that most people believe they have free will, they believe that what they do is the result of their own decisions.
But this is only a delusion.
Actually the vast majority of peoples thoughts are simply the result of mechanical programming, much like a computer.
the accumulation of conditionnings.
each thoughts that arise are basically the output of these.
I am thinking it is limited by your DNA somehow. Since our DNA is so not like anybody elsese's (sp). It's like if your rich and have sweet parents you might have an edge up in survival mode. If you are poor well....that can sometimes be the catlysist to achieve many things. I am wondering if we are restricted karmically to our DNA though. Parents play such a key role in our upbringing. Some are plumb off their rockers. Some are fair and balanced. Some are taken to soon from us. Or a sweet brother is taken too soon from us. It's just so many variables that it seems like perhaps that we are the only ones who know what the hell we are doing.
Or what we are about. We seem secure in that secret knowledge I think.
IDK.
Our Karma brings us into each circumstance we find ourselves.
The choices we make within the circumstances we find ourselves in, will determine in part our future karma.
We do have free will. Karma is not fate because it is dynamic.
However, if for example my karma was such that I was born to abusive parents, and perhaps my mother was alcoholic and drank while pregnant, and as a result I have fetal alcohol syndrome. These events are very very likely to impact my ability to make good choices, and it is not at all uncommon in such situations for a person to make the same wrong choices their parents made, and thus create unfortunate karma in their own future.
So such an individual does have free will, but it is still very much coloured by the circumstances that that free will exists within, and the karma that brought about that free will within those circumstances.
Of course there is also collective karma as well as individual karma...every jewel in Indras net reflects every other jewel.
Hopefully I am explaining this in a manner that makes sense.:o
If anything this should underscore the importance of making the most of your life and your opportunity to hear and practice the Dharma when you have it.
Depends on perspective.
From the perspective of self there most clearly is a choice but from the perspective of emptiness all things arise from causes and conditions.
Every choice we make is the only choice that can be made and cannot be otherwise. Even the bad decisions are the only ones that one can make at that point in time taking into account all the factors involved.
Until one reaches that place one will continue to strive under the illusion of free will.
To us, there are choices. There are decisions. There is free will. One can not see a perspective that differs from this except through awakening, and so such perspectives are not helpful. Am I making sense?
Namaste
Having just reread my post it's clear that it's not really on topic. I'm just going to leave it though mostly because I haven't had a chance to get these thoughts out of my head until now so I will selfishly choose to leave them on the page.
If this is the case, that we cannot make choice with free will, and free will is only an illusion, what's the point of Buddha expounding the teachings, and our attempts to follow them? You are describing a completely deterministic reality, one that is phenomenologically closed and in no way amenable to our efforts to change how we deal with it.
It's like being "a little bit pregnant". Not possible. Either there is free will or there's not.
When something that goes wrong in the life of somebody who have anger issues, when this overwhelming emotion just take over the whole body to the point where that person actually shake, and his mind is instantly filled with a torrent of thoughts of hatred, anger, destruction etc...
you think that the free will play a big part of the next decisions this person will take?
I think the same principles apply to most people in their daily lives, but the situation is not so extreme so the illusion of free will is more pronounced.
Yes.
Humans have free will, and can use that free will to make choices regardless of the circumstances in which they are if they are aware that they are choosing. Certain conditions can influent the individual, but ultimately there's always a choice.
A lot of different thinkers can be mentioned - Isaac Berlin, Sartre, Camus, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Rand, Nozick.. This position seems to appeal a lot to western philosophers.
Determinism, and deterministic thinkers take it "all the way" and concludes, that since everything is causality, no one has any responsibility. I do not recall any philosophers of this view...
In compatibilism ("soft determinism") the concepts of free will and determinism are, well, compatible. The world is not a "big clock", but a series of causalities (agent causality). Responsibility (and sanctioning) is not considered a waste of time, because the sanction for an action is a new causality, making the individual re-think his/her actions in the future - thus the sanction must be chosen for the individual to plant "a seed" for future behavior. We are constantly the focus of a struggle between different "push/pull"-factors. Hume and Hobbes belong here.
Just to illuminate a little on the issue of "free will".
How can you be sure that you are the one who is taking action?
These are questions that ultimately cannot be answered.
If it's true that we as subjects do not make choices in the first place, and that we are not the ones taking action, then this is a totally determined universe and all this is meaningless- "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".
There's just something about the nature of consciousness as I subjectively experience it that gives me a gut-feeling that I am making choices. Things I have read and experienced, especially within the context of Buddhism, make me inclined to think that Buddhism has examined the phenomenon thoroughly enough to make all this meaningful. But if it's not, it's not.
so one can at lease make one own choice to walk the path of noble beings , that changed it karma fundamentally from falling back to the natural tendency of lower 6 paths that rules by the 3 poisons of greed, anger and stupidity
This is just for the sake of discussion because I know what I believe, but Marmalade's question is "how do we know that we are actually making this choice rather than this choice being determined too?" which I understand as asking "how do we know that our belief in free choice is not a delusion too?".
I understand Marmalade to be suggesting that "everything we know is wrong", at least for the sake of discussion.
The whole point of spiritual struggle is to reveal the nature of conditionality ie. all things are conditioned. Whatever decisions made "good" or "bad" are ultimately the only ones that could have been made at that time. How could it be otherwise?
One may or may not learn from bad "mistakes" but our choices are in a way "predetermined". We do good (or bad) because we were taught to do so by our parents, teachers and society.
The experience "I am" is an illusion and since ultimately there is no I there cannot be free will. This is one of the last fetters to overcome. Beyond this one is no longer subjected to forces of karma and is free from bondage.
Regarding karma, the short articles about karma on this website are worth reading:
http://www.unfetteredmind.com/articles/karma.php
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Here is Ajahn Brahms take on making choices
Often when you start to delve into non-self, there comes a time when you don't want to go any further because you're afraid. I'm not talking about ordinary fear; I'm talking about fear that goes to what you take to be your very "core". You're challenging all you ever thought about yourself, and you're undermining your whole essence of existence. Your whole reason to be is being challenged by imagining what it would be like if there were nothing there. If you have the courage and the faith to go through that fear and find that what you were afraid of was nothing, you will receive the most beautiful gift - the gift of freedom. The gift of the ending of things, of the work being finished.
Years ago I gave the simile of "the driverless bus". It's like you're driving through life in a bus, and you get pleasant experiences and unpleasant experiences. You think it's your fault; or you think that it's the driver's fault. "Why is it that the driver doesn't drive into pleasant country and stay there for a long time? Why does he always drive into unpleasant territory and stay there a long time?" You want to find out who is controlling this journey called "my life". Why is it that you experience so much pain and suffering? You want to find out where the driver is, the driver of these five aggregates (Khandhas): body, feeling, perception, mentality and consciousness - the driver of you. After doing a lot of meditation and listening to the Dhamma, you finally go up to where the driver's seat is in the bus, and you find it's empty!
It shocks you at first, but it gives you so much relief to know there's no one to blame. How many people blame somebody when there is suffering? They either blame God, or they blame their parents, or they blame the government, or they blame the weather, or they blame some sickness they have, and in the last resort if they can't find anyone else to blame, they blame themselves. It's stupidity. There is no one to blame! Look inside and see it's empty, "a driverless bus". When you see non-self (Anatta), you see there is no one to blame; it's Anatta. The result is that you go back into your seat and just enjoy the journey. If it's a driverless bus, what else can you do? You sit there when you go through pleasant experiences, "just pleasant experiences that's all". You go through painful experiences, "just painful experiences, that's all". It's just a driverless bus.
http://www.buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud/ebmed076.htm
"How could it be otherwise?" Well... I could decide to help a little old lady across the street if it appeared to me that she needed the help, or I could decide not to. That's how it could be otherwise.
"our choices are in a way "predetermined""... so apparently in a way our choices are not predetermined.
"The experience "I am" is an illusion and since ultimately there is no I there cannot be free will." Free will can be present even if there ultimately there is no "I" as conventionally experienced.
All I am saying here is that if there is no free will on the part of the experiencing and acting subject, then the whole enterprise of Buddhism, and by implication the whole human enterprise, is completely meaningless and pointless because this implies that absolutely everything is predetermined.
well our teacher the historical Buddha went through the same struggle too, the batle between one innate fundamental darkness ( to block the truth of reality ) and our fundamental buddhahood ( budhi, buddha wisdom to see thr truth , buddha nature )
even at the very last moment before the Buddha gained his enlightenment, he was tested by his own darkness to doubt over that all his struggle is false , an illusion , not worth to pursuit , even his own existence is not truth etc etc , one the Buddha could cross this last hinderance in his own life , he not able to become a Buddha .
A Buddha is also know as the hero of human and deva, as he won over his own darkness in life , and his gain wisdom and compassion that benefit many beings down the generations .
bu for us as practitioners, it is the moment to moment struggle inside our life, the moment we start to lax and off gaurded , it would be won over by our innate darkness
how we know if our belief and process is correct ? well we can rely on the Buddha canon, this is the Buddha wisdom left for our as our guide
Namaste
And when the great depression hit which was my mom's era these strength's along with a lot of harsh corporeal punishment was passed out. Now that I can look back and see I wish I could have helped her more for what she was going thru.
Yes very well said Javelin. Sure gets a person to thinking don't it. This is a really deep subject.
If you mean this theory of "past life karma appearing in this birth so that you just have to suffer because the causes of your karma are in the past life etc" then not all Buddhist believe that nor is it mentioned so by the Buddha
this life karma is enough.
People suffer from anxiety, stress, depression etc... all based on how they delt with the situations in the past.
I think these things are answerable. Ask yourself and see what the answer is. It's nothing. When you look for the person who is making the choices and experiencing them, there is only emptiness.
You say that if there really was no "you" making the choices, then everything would be meaningless, but 'meaning' is just one of the constructs that you create and participate in.
Phenomena arises. That's it. There is no one there to do the decision making, or even the observing. There's just nothing there. This concept makes us feel sad until we realize that there never was anyone to feel sad in the first place.
Nothing is that which gives focus to something. 'Nothing' is as ever-present as 'something' is. It is/has always been there, the problem is it's so close to you that you just don't notice it.
I think we're reaching the point at which semantics is taking over the discussion. If semantics gets pushed too far, then the discussion becomes pointless, or so complex that it moves out of the beginner's section like the thread on emptiness got moved. I would need a big dry-erase board to take it from here.
You've hit the nail on the head. There is no point in choosing Dharma, because 'you' cannot choose anything, because 'you' is just a concept, a thought, a construct, a myth, an idea, a ghost, a fallacy.
There's absolutely nothing where 'volition' should be.
lol @ the dry erase board thing
In a way, we are all karma, what arises is your karma but we are all interlinked also. Buddhism is definitely a path of liberation. Best wishes.
This is completely unacceptable in Buddhism. Not only did the Buddha teach against the caste system, he taught the equality of women as well. Women are in all ways equal to men, and such deprivation, victimization, and abuse are completely unacceptable. A Buddhist should do everything possible to help a woman in such a situation. It's not so much a matter of compassion as doing what is obviously the right thing to do.
You might want to start a separate thread about this.
I love this guy!:)
As far as choices go, I would say that the answer is yes and no, depending on how you look at it. If you look at it from the viewpoint of a fully awakened one, there is no choice because there is no longer a chooser and if there is nothing there to do the choosing, how can there be a choice?
But if you look at it from the viewpoint of a non-awakened one, I think it is clear that we chose to practice right action, right speech, etc. and we choose to follow the precepts, etc.
So I think that the answer to the question of "Is there a choice" is really yes and no, both of which are correct, depending on how you look at it.
This flipping over is a kind of kensho.<!-- / message --><!-- edit note -->
Also, somebody said something about how, if all was conditioned then all would be meaningless. Isn't meaning something we create with our world view anyway? Thus a matter of conditioning?