A question on fate and destiny

[vanbui]

Hi Jundo and everyone,

I have a question on fate and destiny. I'm sure this Sangha has touched on this topic many times in the past, but it seems I can't get my head around this question. We had a family dinner last night, and many of my friends and family members believe that most things are destined to happen, and we cannot do anything about it e.g. we are destined to meet certain people in our life; we are destined to marry a certain person; if something bad happened, then it was fated…. I understand that in Zen, we learn to accept things as they are, and leave these questions aside. The more I practice Zen, the more these questions appear less significant as I focus more on here and now. However, last night I wasn’t sure how to answer those questions so I kept quiet. I have learned from Jundo not to worry about what happens after we died and I can see the logic in that. So I have been wondering how does Zen answer this question on fate and destiny?

Gassho
Van
Satlah

[Kokuu]

Hi Vanbui

That is a good question! Thank you for asking.

Zen, and Buddhism as a whole, does not see things as fated. Life unfolds as a result of our individual and collective decisions and it is within our power to influence that.

However, our actions are influenced by conditioning which comes from the environment we grew up in, our genetics and our previous choices and actions (karma). So, it is not like our actions are completely free of influence and I am sure you are aware that humans quickly develop habitual patterns which can be hard to break. That is not the same as fate though.

I think that the problem with seeing events as fated is that you can avoid taking individual responsibility for what is happening. This is certainly not the Buddhist way. We may not be in complete control of our lives and are at the mercy of external circumstances and events to some degree. However, we can always choose how we respond.

The fact that life is open to our choices means that the precepts matter and our actions matter. One act of kindness and compassion can change how things are, as can one act of cruelty.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Onka]

Gassho
Onka
ST

[vanbui]

Hi Kokuu,

Thank you so much for your insightful answer - I actually like it so much that I have copied and paste to my friend so I hope you don't mind (if you do I can always delete). I think your answer has encapsulated my sentiments very well because I don't believe everything is destined and we are ultimately responsible for our karma. As you said, we are influenced by causes and conditions, but there is no escaping that we are the ones who make the decision to do good or evil deeds.

Gassho
Van
Satlah

Sent from my HD1913 using Tapatalk

[Tairin]

Wonderful response Kokuu. Thank you. I really like what you said about the Precepts matter and our choices matter. For me, following the Precepts isn’t about good behaviours leading to heaven and bad behaviours leading to hell. For me, following the Precepts is about the echo that my intentions leave behind (karma).


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Jundo]

Hi Van,

As Kokuu said, even with traditional ideas of Karma, we are left with free will right now to choose a course commencing from here. Of course, we are not completely free because we must choose while within the circumstances we face, yet we have many many options for good or bad or in between.

It is interesting to consider how much of our life is preordained, if any. Certainly, it is very strange that we popped up with these bodies, and our lives, in the middle of time and space. Perhaps something is determined somehow. However, we Zen folks tend not to ponder that question so much. Much more important is what you plan to do right now, with the cards you find in your hand.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Kokuu]

Thank you so much for your insightful answer - I actually like it so much that I have copied and paste to my friend so I hope you don't mind (if you do I can always delete). I think your answer has encapsulated my sentiments very well because I don't believe everything is destined and we are ultimately responsible for our karma. As you said, we are influenced by causes and conditions, but there is no escaping that we are the ones who make the decision to do good or evil deeds.

You are welcome, Vanbui, and I am glad you found it helpful.

I do think it is good to take a middle way of thinking that we have some control over our lives but not totally. Fate is one extreme and the other is thinking that everything that happens to us is a result of our decision making. While that may be true, it is also the case that some people are born into worse circumstances through absolutely no fault of their own and likewise people get sick, murdered or suffer tragedies that have very little to do with their own actions.

Wonderful response Kokuu. Thank you. I really like what you said about the Precepts matter and our choices matter. For me, following the Precepts isn’t about good behaviours leading to heaven and bad behaviours leading to hell. For me, following the Precepts is about the echo that my intentions leave behind (karma).

I agree, Tairin! Following the precepts tends to make for less suffering both for ourselves and for others.


Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Amelia]

Kokuu's answer is much more eloquent than mine. Often when I encounter these questions in conversation, to which almost everyone I know has either formed a belief or not, my answer is just, "I don't know."

Gassho
Sat today, lah

[Jundo]

Nishijima Roshi had a very beautiful idea of free will, that we are somehow "choice machines" standing on the razor's edge of past and future. I think most brain research is pretty much in accord these days. I once described it like this. Sorry it is a little long. You may choose not to read it.

===============

Because we are on the razor's edge, the cutting edge, of past and future, we actually have "free will" because our brains are the "choice machines" in which a vast (and often random, chaotic, unpredictable) variety of past and present factors come together to produce a new and virtually unpredictable choice. It is not really "determined" by past factors and current circumstances because such an avalanche of varied variables is coming together to produce the choice in this moment, that something totally new is being created with us as the vehicle of that creation. Thus, our choices are an "emergent" phenomenon, derived from a chaotic blend of earlier causes yet something different and new. Also, the values and preferences that are often the deciding factors are precisely who we are as individual people. The future is the open space into which the results pour forth from the avalanche in ways that, although "caused" in one sense, are also practically sui generis because of the chance, complexity, chaos and our personal individuality that produced them.

For example, let us say I choose to have a glass of milk rather than eat a ham sandwich. A small sample of the vast and tumultuous array of factors coming together might be the hot weather producing thirst, my lactose intolerance that will cause hickups from the milk, a memory of a glass of milk from my mother as a child, a cute cartoon I saw about pigs yesterday, a comment about vegetarianism on treeleaf, some ancient guilt at eating Kosher from my cultural background, the Precept on taking life, a neutron that passes through my brain in that moment and triggers an electrical firing in one neuron, my love of the taste of ham, the fact that the ham is near the front of the refrigerator but the milk is near the back, chemical and vitamin deficiencies for calcium and protein in my body, a random bird noise outside, the phone ringing, just where my eye happens to land ... and 10,000,000 more factors ...

... which factors all get shook up in a bag somewhere in my brain and nervous system (most of it below our conscious awareness, the choice being already made deep within even before I am aware of the experience of choosing), causing me to choose the milk and not the sandwich.

Although one might say that all the factors "caused" my choice, at the same time, the combination of factors coming together is so unique, jumbled, chaotic in combinations, unpredictable in timing and relative effect on each other, that the outcome could not and did not exist until we (who are the bag) produce a choice. So many factors came together that really the outcome is practically (if not totally) unpredictable and free.

Moreover, my personal values, my personal likes and dislikes, aversions and attractions, preferences and moral sentiments, personal history and present circumstances that are the basis of choosing are my "me," are very much integral to who I am, no matter how they came to be me from past causes. The values and preferences are necessary to making a person into a "person," and no person is a person without their values and preferences (they would be a kind of zombie or emotional vegetable without). I act from them and live them, and they are the deciding factor on most choices. That choosing is our life. The choice and outcome did not exist before "the bag that is me was shook" within our psyche while coming to hold those personal values and preferences that are precisely "me," and I implement what popped out.

Thus we human beings are, and are responsible for, our aversions and attractions that lead to our choosing and must bear responsibility therefor (something like how, if my car brakes fail and cause an accident, I am responsible legally for the accident that results because it is "my car" even though not "me." I am responsible for my driving, and I am responsible for my choosing, my decisions to make left or right turns in life and all the good or harm which result). That shaking of the bag and acting upon our values and preferences is our "job" as living creatures, and we are those "choosing machines" with (practically) free will because of the originality of the choice that must result from its randomness and chaos of circumstances and factors in contact with the "who we are" values and preferences. Thus, we also have a good deal of moral control when we follow or deviate from our values and preferences (e.g., it is my own heart and feelings that wrestle with the question and lead me to eat meat rather than to be a vegetarian).

I believe the above is in keeping with Buddhist beliefs on our being influenced by "Karma" (past actions) and other historical and environmental factors, yet also "free agents" who are not prisoners of Karma.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Ryumon]

Zen, and Buddhism as a whole, does not see things as fated. Life unfolds as a result of our individual and collective decisions and it is within our power to influence that.

Not just Zen and Buddhism, but most philosophers believe that determinism - the idea that everything happens because of previous causes - is simply wrong. There are a number of philosophical schools that do believe in it, notably a number of philosophers who have been trying to prove that we have no free will, but these seem to me - a real dilettante as far as philosophy is concerned - to be more philosophical games that true beliefs.

If you really want to look into this, this Wikipedia article is a good place to start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism

I find that it's a very interesting debate, which brings up a lot of other issues: for example, is one born racist or does one become racist, is one that has a certain resonance today.

Gassho,

Kirk

sat

[Onkai]

Gassho,
Onkai
Sat/LAH

[Kyotaku]

How can there be free will. The Buddhist pillars are : Impermanence, No self and Interdependent origination. In other words, there is no individual person and all is entangled. So who is there to choose.

I heard the expression once : don't see it as predestined, but things go their way unavoidable.

Seeing that there can be no free will ultimately means that you have to act as if you have free will. But it gives some freedom in realizing afterwards that you could not have choosen otherwise .....

And the modern neurological research also comes to the conclusion that there can be no free will.

Gassho2
Hosei
Sat Today

[Jundo]

How can there be free will. The Buddhist pillars are : Impermanence, No self and Interdependent origination. In other words, there is no individual person and all is entangled. So who is there to choose.

I heard the expression once : don't see it as predestined, but things go their way unavoidable.

Seeing that there can be no free will ultimately means that you have to act as if you have free will. But it gives some freedom in realizing afterwards that you could not have choosen otherwise .....

And the modern neurological research also comes to the conclusion that there can be no free will.

Gassho2
Hosei
Sat Today

Well, if there is no free will in traditional Buddhism, does Karma just send people to hell for acting as they are bound to act?

I think that there was always free will assumed within traditional Buddhism.

Gassho, Jundo

STLah

[Ryumon]

In other words, there is no individual person and all is entangled. So who is there to choose.

I think you're forgetting that Buddhism resolves this with the concept of the two truths: that there are both relative truths (we exist and decide what we do) and absolute truths (that there is no independent origination).

And the modern neurological research also comes to the conclusion that there can be no free will.

That's not quite true. There have been some studies using fMRI that find that the brain reacts before people think they are reacting, but these studies are probably not measuring correctly. (And neuroscience has not come to conclusions on much; the very nature of this type of science is that they know that they have to keep changing what they think is right.)

If there were no free will, it was pre-determined that I would come to the forum today, see your message, and post this reply. And that everything else I do is just moving forward in a clockwork universe. I don't see how Buddhism could support that. What about the Boddhisatva vow? That seems to suggest that there is free will.

Gasso,

Kirk

SAT

[Onkai]

It is my experience that I am constantly making decisions an choosing where to put my attention. Each time I do that differently, I have different results. So I think there is a great deal of free will, although I can't control outcomes.

Gassho,
Onkai
Sat/LAH