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Free will
Would the Buddha say we have free will, or that we live in a deterministic world? In the light of anatta what exactly has free will and to what extent?
EDIT:Sorry mods. I meant to post this on the Buddhism for beginners forum.
EDIT:Sorry mods. I meant to post this on the Buddhism for beginners forum.
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by the Buddha
This is what should be done by one who is skilled in goodness and who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied,
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: in gladness and in safety may all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be,
Whether they are weak or strong,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to be born, omitting none,
May all beings be at ease.
Let none deceive another or despise any being in any state.
Let none, through anger of ill-will wish harm upon another.
Like a mother protects her child, her only child with her life,
So with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings.
Radiating kindness over the entire world:
Spreading upwards to the skies and downwards to the depths,
Outwards and unbounded, free from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness, one should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
Wise Company gives good Advantage:
The blessed Buddha on Noble Friendship:
I am a friend and helper to all,
I am sympathetic to all living beings.
I develop a mind full of love & one
who always delight in harmlessness.
I gladden my mind, fill it with joy,
and make it immovable and unshakable.
I develop these divine states of mind
not cultivated by simple men.
Theragatha 648-9
I am a friend of the footless,
I am a friend of the bipeds;
I am a friend of those with four feet,
I am a friend of the many-footed.
May not the footless harm me,
may not the bipeds harm me,
may not those with four feet harm me,
and may not those with many feet harm me.
AN II 72
A friend who always lends a hand,
a friend both in sorrow and joy,
a friend who offers good counsel,
a friend who sympathizes too.
These are the four kinds of true friends:
one who is wise, having understood,
will always cherish and serve such friends
just as a mother tends her only child.
Abhidhamma Pitaka: Appama嚭a-vibhanga
Bhikkhus, whatever kinds of worldly merit there are, all are not worth
one sixteenth part of the release of mind by universal friendliness;
in shining, glowing and beaming radiance such release of mind by
universal friendliness far excels & surpasses them all...
Could you explain what you mean by this? Do you mean there is free will only until one acknowledges there is no separate self?
None of these posts are making any sense!! lol
In Buddhist philosophy
Buddhism accepts both freedom and determinism (or something similar to it), but rejects the idea of an agent, and thus the idea that freedom is a free will belonging to an agent.<sup id="cite_ref-Gier_77-0" class="reference">[78]</sup> According to the Buddha, "There is free action, there is retribution, but I see no agent that passes out from one set of momentary elements into another one, except the [connection] of those elements."<sup id="cite_ref-Gier_77-1" class="reference">[78]</sup> Buddhists believe in neither absolute free will, nor determinism. It preaches a middle doctrine, named pratitya-samutpada in Sanskrit, which is often translated as "inter-dependent arising". It is part of the theory of karma in Buddhism. The concept of karma in Buddhism is different from the notion of karma in Hinduism. In Buddhism, the idea of karma is much less deterministic. The Buddhist notion of karma is primarily focused on the cause and effect of moral actions in this life, while in Hinduism the concept of karma is more often connected with determining one's destiny in future lives.
In Buddhism it is taught that the idea of absolute freedom of choice (i.e. that any human being could be completely free to make any choice) is foolish, because it denies the reality of one's physical needs and circumstances. Equally incorrect is the idea that we have no choice in life or that our lives are pre-determined. To deny freedom would be to deny the efforts of Buddhists to make moral progress (through our capacity to freely choose compassionate action). Pubbekatahetuvada, the belief that all happiness and suffering arise from previous actions, is considered a wrong view according to Buddhist doctrines. Because Buddhists also reject agenthood, the traditional compatibilist strategies are closed to them as well. Instead, the Buddhist philosophical strategy is to examine the metaphysics of causality. Ancient India had many heated arguments about the nature of causality with Jains, Nyayists, Samkhyists, Cārvākans, and Buddhists all taking slightly different lines. In many ways, the Buddhist position is closer to a theory of "conditionality" than a theory of "causality", especially as it is expounded by Nagarjuna in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.<sup id="cite_ref-Gier_77-2" class="reference">[78]</sup>
I think he'd say something like, we have functional choice via intention (cetana) operating within the broader framework of causality that conditions the choices available to us at any given time. As one erudite poster on another forum put it: