You never had a choice.

[sean]

To read this post or not?

 

Well, everything you end up doing is the culmination of something larger and out of your control.

Everything you say is channeled and not your own.

 

Freedom is empty.

 

A character in a film can appear to have volition, until it is remembered that there is an author and a script.

A thermostat can be said to control the temperature of a room, until it is remembered that it is a hand that turns the dial.

 

Similarly, it can seem like decisions are your own; within an innocent daydream that there was ever a fixed locus of identity and control.

 

Who am I? Who are you? So regularly and so deeply is it assumed there is a discrete I and a separate you somewhere(!) at the deepest foundation of our experience. Must be hiding. And so we seek.

 

Yet this "central experiencer" can never be identified distinctly from that which is happening.

 

This is it folks.

 

Sean

[Yi Tao]

Everything you say is channeled and not your own.

 

Freedom is empty.

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WOW! I WOULD APPOLOGIZE FOR THE TEXT ABOVE, BUT IT WASN"T ME. NOT SURE WHY I"M YELLING NOW, BUT I SWEAR IT"S NOT ME!

 

HELP! I"M BEING CHANNELED! ARGHH...

[Yoda]

People who believe in free will get laid more often.

[DentyDao]

I can't decide if this is fatalistic or nihilistic. Either way it's a bit limited to think that everything could be one sided.

 

I think we need to carefully examine this view. The real 'you' is beyond such extremes as nonexistence. We have the ability to awaken from the dream. I think this is what happens when philosophy becomes a substitute for actual experience.

[Cameron]

[mYTHmAKER]

A character in a film can appear to have volition, until it is remembered that there is an author and a script.

Sean

 

Some of the best directors let their actors express themselves and even suggest things

that work better in the film/play.

Maybe our script is you are born - you die - the rest is up to you.

Land on Boardwalk - you either sell it, buy it or go to jail.

Otherwise it might be pretty boring for god or whatever.

[gendao]

Who are you in your dreams? Do you have free will in them? Or are they predestined - and if so - by whom or what?

 

Do "you" have a "choice" in "your" dreams?

Edited May 14, 2007 by vortex

[DentyDao]

[Lozen]

At the Natalie Goldberg workshop, she was talking about writing her novel as practice. She said she didn't control the outcome, the characters did. She just watched it happen. She was no longer writing a book, writing was writing the book. Olympic athletes talk about this as well. They are no longer running, running is running. Martial artists too say the art is alive. Sculptors say they do not sculpt, they just remove the excess material. So what is it that is sculpting? Perhaps they are moved by a greater power... but it's still their CHOICE to sculpt. I question anything that implies there is no free will, especially because people often use that as an excuse to do awful things.

 

And yes, you can control your dreams.

[Cameron]

It is only though your illusions and the dream itself that the dreamer can awaken. If this weren't the case than you never would have come into being in the first place. Do not fall into the trap of eternalism or Nihilism. These are too extreme and both false. Instead take the middle way. There is no 'truth' that says your illusion will automatically come to an end, who says that? They could very well continue forever.

 

 

I have no idea. But I like Jeannie and the quote sounded cool. So there!

[Cameron]

[DentyDao]

[Cameron]

I have no idea about Gangaji or her personal life. Ime not sure if something 'bad' happens to someone that doesn't mean they arent enlightened. There have been Zen Masters like Ikkyu who were considered highly enlightened and were sex maniacs, atleast for a period of time. From what I read he would go into brothels in Japan and just drink and fuck everything in site.

 

Tesshu was an enlightened Samurai who was a heavy drinker and into sex. He was married but at one point had a goal to sleep with every woman in Japan to fully remove the seperation between self and other. From what I remember he finally gave up and turned to zazen and the way of the sword.

 

You can read about his wild path to enlightenment in "The Sword of No Sword" By John Stevens.

 

Anyway, appreciate your feedback Sean D! Stick to your guns!

[DentyDao]

Tesshu was an enlightened Samurai who was a heavy drinker and into sex. He was married but at one point had a goal to sleep with every woman in Japan to fully remove the seperation between self and other. From what I remember he finally gave up and turned to zazen and the way of the sword.

 

Interesting stuff Cam.

 

My respose wasn't directed at your comments.

[DentyDao]

Anyway, appreciate your feedback Sean D! Stick to your guns!

My plot to take over this website has come to an end, but now I'm planning to take over the world.

 

It would have worked to... if it wasn't for those meddling kids.

[Cameron]

My plot to take over this website has come to an end, but now I'm planning to take over the world.

 

It would have worked to... if it wasn't for those meddling kids.

 

 

Sean D, how old are you? I had it in my head you were my age, early 30's.

[DentyDao]

Sean D, how old are you? I had it in my head you were my age, early 30's.

13

[sean]

I am just using words of course, so they are limited and ultimately silly. But let this view sink in for a minute if you care. Not as a new philosophical position or spiritual argument. Just for fun maybe.

 

When you look into it, the idea that there is free will is contextual.

Contextual doesn't mean wrong, it just means not absolute.

 

That something is used as an excuse to avoid responsibility is not a logical argument against it. Almost anything that works as a way to avoid responsibility is used, including the truth.

 

The fact is, there are processes occurring in your brain that collectively create the conviction of a consolidated, executive sense of self, typically behind your eyes, making creative decisions and enjoying or suffering their outcomes. This phenomenon of self-creation is part of evolution and does have relative value. But these processes are themselves without independent nature.

 

In other words, they dependently arise. This is called pratityasamutpada in Buddhism, arguably the only distinct doctrine to come out of Buddhism that did not have precedent in earlier religions. This view considers the western mechanical model "A (me) is the cause of B (my actions)" as naive which is precisely what earned Buddhism the critique by early western thinkers as a fatalistic philosophy. The other side of the same coin is the doctrine of sunyata, or emptiness, and is what led Buddhism to be characterized as nihilstic. I mention this out of irony for you SeanD, as our resident Buddhist scholar consistently advocating we immerse ourselves in Eastern thinking, yet you mischaracterize my view as both fatalistic and nihilistic based on a commonly shallow and early western misunderstanding of Buddhist doctrine.

 

Choice is an abstraction that is convenient and necessary and good and beautiful in context, as is a sense of self. Without these we would not be human. Yet truly, choices happen without a chooser. There is no thinker of your thoughts.

 

There is no one who one day wakes up from this dream. One is already awake.

 

An incredible story is being told by no one, to no one. Or by God to God. However you want to look at it.

 

There is no mistake here. There is nothing wrong with illusion. All great art is a lie. Nature herself is the biggest liar (thanks Taomeow). Mastering this spectrum does get you laid more often (thank Yoda) and may result in superpowers if you want them (thanks SeanD).

 

This great illusion of choice is part of an awesome creative game being played by God, our deepest Self, for no comprehensible reason.

 

In other words, for Love.

 

 

Sean

[Wayfarer64]

At the Natalie Goldberg workshop, she was talking about writing her novel as practice. She said she didn't control the outcome, the characters did. She just watched it happen. She was no longer writing a book, writing was writing the book. Olympic athletes talk about this as well. They are no longer running, running is running. Martial artists too say the art is alive. Sculptors say they do not sculpt, they just remove the excess material. So what is it that is sculpting? Perhaps they are moved by a greater power... but it's still their CHOICE to sculpt. I question anything that implies there is no free will, especially because people often use that as an excuse to do awful things.

 

And yes, you can control your dreams.

 

Lozen you make many good points here. It seems to me all good art just flows through the "creator"- be it music poetry, prose, painting sculpting...Most artists worth the name let it flow through them and then only adapt their skills to the needs of the work. Michaelangelo-said the figures were just in the stone and he only released them.

 

The hard part of being an artists is the actual doing allowing one's self to be exhausted by the process and then get up and do it again until the work is done -it takes amazing amounts of will-power to keep going, open yrself up to the process and then allow yr skills to make the visions you receive come to life.

 

I agree on the dream thing and there are many techniques that can be learned to stay aware and have some control in yr dreaming.

Edited May 15, 2007 by Wayfarer64

[Lozen]

I don't think the idea of choice is abstract, convenient, necessary, good or beautiful. I think it makes everything harder. And I think what makes art great is when it rings true, not when it is a lie.

 

I also don't think illusion would be an awesome creative game, or that love = no comprehensible reason.

 

You lost me, Sean.

[DentyDao]

 

This great illusion of choice is part of an awesome creative game being played by God, our deepest Self, for no comprehensible reason.

 

In other words, for Love.

Sean

 

Now there's something we can all agree on... Shit now there's nothing to talk about.

[Smile]

You never have a choice... but I do - I have Jesus.

[Lozen]

You never have a choice... but I do - I have Jesus.

 

Where?

[Wayfarer64]

You never have a choice... but I do - I have Jesus.

 

 

That Jesus guy is always coming between folks. Wazzzup widat?

Such a trouble maker! And he could have been such a nice catch if he hadn't gotten all up with his posse and roused the rabble against those nice Roman folks; then he gets the Romans to front for him & now everyone's asking what would he do?

 

So Here's he said to be all pro-choice and whatever- but else wheres the anti-choice people say he's with them.

 

Maybe he's got too many folks claiming his allegence...got me...baffled...

[Smile]

Where?

Here :

He comes with his own too.