For years, I’ve read and listened to discussions about whether humans have free will. I don’t know if there is an answer, and for me it is a useless argument. I am not sure whether I have a choice to act thus and thus. But I am very aware that I am able to decide whether to experience such and such. I think that has more importance.
How I live my life is based on insight, and has little to do with free will. It is insight that allows the energy to flow.
The choice is whether to yield to what is there. The choice is whether to be open to what lies before me. The choice is whether to allow my feet to fall on the path of awareness, not a choice whether to allow them to fall on the the path of action. Action will naturally follow insight and awareness, without effort or direction. My choice is where to direct my attention, where to allow it to flow.
My choice is whether to listen to the morning news, whether to drop my barriers to attention and allow what is there to flow in. I cannot will the news away, but I have a choice whether to experience it. For me, it is so much more powerful not to think in terms of whether to walk through my garden, but whether to experience it. I do get to decide whether to allow my garden to draw me into its midst. I’m not sure I actually decide to put one foot in front of the other. That action follows my attention.
I don’t think that I actually decided whether to be a biologist or a botanist. I allowed my attention to follow one to the other, and that is the path I knew to follow. It was as natural as brushing my hand across the flower when it captured my attention. I see what is there, and I yield to what I allow to draw me into it.
There was a time to be a monk, my attention focused on no other path. I simply moved forward on the path, drawn by where my insight drew me. And as flawlessly, but not without fireworks, I yielded to the call that caused me to leave. I did, finally, yield to what I knew felt normal and natural for me. I spent so much time deliberating. The fruitless debate in my head got me no where. It was not a logical choice that lead me to finally yield to what I knew was there.
This yielding to awareness happens every day on the bus. I see someone I know and the first thing I do is turn all my awareness to them, most of the time. I see someone I do not know. At once I sense a small flicker of awareness in me, perhaps in them. I recognize the oneness, the connection between us. My big decision is whether to open my awareness, to yield to their presence, to remove my instinct to deny connection, to allow what is so obvious to enter. We are connected, and my decision revolves around how much I will allow my awareness to blossom and be felt.
I think I have a choice about how to experience that oneness. Sometimes I avert my eyes because the oneness, the connection is so hard for me to accept. Sometimes it is simply unpleasant. It is easier for me to ignore their presence. Sometimes it is pleasant to be aware and it is so much easier. Sometimes the other person is weighing the same decision, whether to acknowledge my presence by allowing their attention to be directed at me, whether to experience what it feels like to be aware of me.
As I walk up Hennepin Avenue, I am aware of so many people who seem to choose to ignore me even while I am choosing to be aware of them. Choosing to experience someone is often hard, even in close relationships.
I am slowly learning how to remove the barriers that keep me from experience. I am constantly surprised how full of fear that choice can be when time after time it is such a source of joy. I know how my mental constructs may help me to organize experience, but they also are a serious barrier to open experience. It is a joy to know that my son, Nathan, understands this.
It takes practice, but I am beginning to feel other humans as they are, to experience their presence. Other people, including everyone on the bus or walking down the sidewalk, do not exist in my imagination or fantasy. They are not what my reactions of aversion or desire might conjure up. I am choosing to experience them as they are, and each of them makes the same choice whether to experience me as I am.
For many it is a quick decision not to experience me, for some it is a curious glance, for some it is the beginning of awareness. All the while I am making similar choices on how to experience this human being. Actions naturally flow from insight, from what I choose to experience.