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The entire practise of Buddhism requires free will. Without free will, it would be impossible to follow the eightfold path. You may be thinking that karma pre

The entire practise of Buddhism requires free will. Without free will, it would be impossible to follow the eightfold path. You may be thinking that karma predetermines all our behaviour. This is a false view that the Buddha specifically denied. Our current state, and our current actions are determined by a combination of past conditioning (karma) and our will/intentions in the current moment. You could think of it as a function with two main input streams. Because it's recursive (past will/intentions feeds back in as karma) it makes the trajectory nonlinear, which is why it's such a difficult path to navigate.

denton-scratch 7y ago
As I indicated, I am no longer a Buddhist; one reason is that the karma/rebirth story was completely unconvincing to me (karma makes no sense without rebirth). I am convinced by the multiple experimental demonstrations that decisions seem to occur before any cerebral "act of will" can be detected; and the baseball batter story is a nice thought experiment. It's deeply counter-intuitive; the only way I can grok it is that most of what seems to be free will is just observation of "what you were just thinking". But the belief that we have some measure of control is very hard to get rid of. I like the "nonlinear" characterization.
- gerbilly 7y ago
  Not trying to convert you back to Buddhism, but if that's you only objection, I have to tell you Karma does not require rebirth. In fact the Buddha refused to respond one way or another when asked what happens to us after death.¹ Karma can be seen as operating from moment to moment. It's easier to think of it as 'past conditions', i.e. the initial conditions that led to our current state. This applies physically as well as psychologically. If you like the image of non-linearity, see². 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unanswered_questions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unanswered_questions 2: https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/KarmaOfQuestions/Section0009.html https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/KarmaOfQuestions/Section00...

denton-scratch 7y ago

As I indicated, I am no longer a Buddhist; one reason is that the karma/rebirth story was completely unconvincing to me (karma makes no sense without rebirth). I am convinced by the multiple experimental demonstrations that decisions seem to occur before any cerebral "act of will" can be detected; and the baseball batter story is a nice thought experiment. It's deeply counter-intuitive; the only way I can grok it is that most of what seems to be free will is just observation of "what you were just thinking". But the belief that we have some measure of control is very hard to get rid of. I like the "nonlinear" characterization.

gerbilly 7y ago
Not trying to convert you back to Buddhism, but if that's you only objection, I have to tell you Karma does not require rebirth. In fact the Buddha refused to respond one way or another when asked what happens to us after death.¹ Karma can be seen as operating from moment to moment. It's easier to think of it as 'past conditions', i.e. the initial conditions that led to our current state. This applies physically as well as psychologically. If you like the image of non-linearity, see². 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unanswered_questions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unanswered_questions 2: https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/KarmaOfQuestions/Section0009.html https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/KarmaOfQuestions/Section00...