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From a traditional Buddhist perspective free will is necessary. If everything was predetermined, the entire path of practice to freedom from suffering would be
by spicymaki 7y ago
From a traditional Buddhist perspective free will is necessary. If everything was predetermined, the entire path of practice to freedom from suffering would be pointless. However the past karma has an large influence on the present and cannot be ignored.
- denton-scratch 7y agoI thought that it was karma that led to your being born in an age in which a Buddha had existed, karma that led to you encountering the teachings, karma that led to you being able to become a monk, karma that led to your introduction to a teacher, and karma that led to your success in your practice. Nearly everything about the path is determined by karma, no? But all of that kind of karma results from kind (or skillful) actions, and I think the idea is that those moral/immoral actions have to be deliberate, to have any impact on your karma. The way I heard it, most actions that bear at all karma, only bear on karma for this life; actions that create heavy-lifting, multi-life karma are rare. See why I think the guy might be a Buddhist?