Dharma Exchange

Blogging live from retreat... For quite a while I have been struggling with the concept of free will and all its euro-philosophical connotations. The basic idea seems to be that man is superior to all other things since man can set his (free) will to do anything he or she wants. This level of control puts ego / mind above all and into the driver seat. Cogito, ergo sum. For me this works OK when you are asked if you want vanilla or chocolate ice cream. One can decide freely and pick whichever one prefers. Or can one? If freedom of choice is truly enacted by the mind, why is it that I cannot decide during meditation to hold my mind steady on the breath for more than 10 seconds? Invariably it wonders off to play monkey mind. The level of continuous attention I can place on an object is short. If I had free will, I should be able to do it as long as I chose. So is "free" will not a thing of the mind? Does my mind want to focus on the breath and run after random thoughts at the sa...

Both Sufism and Buddhism put emphasis on reducing egoic or karmic thoughts, speech or actions. By diligently watching over your ego, you can be aware of any behavior that is born form the small, egoic self. Both wisdom traditions see everything that arises in our awareness as a perfect expression of the Infinite. Everything that is not "me" is also the Creation of the Divine, and so to blame others for what they do veils us from seeing the world as an Action of the Divine. So there is really no good and bad. Or is there? Granted good and bad entail a judgment which can only be a subjective judgment born from ego. But isn't there something truly good, as in Good. Or truly bad, as in Bad? I cannot how see an appropriate response to the mutilation of civilians in Sierra Leone? How can chopping off limbs to strike terror be Divine? How can a man in Belgium walk into a daycare and kill innocent children with a knife? Where is God in that? These examples stir up such strong emo...