emptybill: > It's true Willy Â… you have no free will. > We are either free or we are bound. If free, then why did the Buddha spend five years striving to be free? If we are bound, by what means can we free ourselves?
> You're just so right ... you are just the > effect of past causes. Whatever happens just > happensÂ… there is no owner. > No events "just happen" - everything happens for a reason, due to cause and effect. > There is nothing that makes you what you are. > We are the result of karma, actions, which in every single case is due to Causation - there are no chance events. What we experience is order, not chaos. Due to ignorance some events just seem to happen - fate - but intelligence tells us that everything is subject to cause and effect - natural law. > Dzogchen Samantabhadra Buddha (not the > Mahayana bodhisattva) in only taught in > Dzogchen. He is the stand-in for rigpa or > originary knowingness. He has free will to > determine his manifestations. > In fact, Samantabhadra is a fiction, made up by Vajrayana practitioners to symbolize unity, as in the Tibetan yab-yum iconography. > He is described as trans-cosmic and is the > Dzogehen symbol for the natural freedom that > is inherent in individual human awareness. > Maybe so. > Except for you Willy. You're an automaton. > Just because you believe in Bonpo practices doesn't prove that Willy has any free will. > > So, is the 'Samantabhadra' Buddha absolute, or > > just a figment of Mahayana imagination? It's > > either 'rongtong' or 'shintong' says Bill, but > > in fact the historical Buddha said nothing about > > any celestial Buddha's having any 'free will'. > > > > Shakya the Muni taught Causation - everything > > happens for a reason - there are no chance > > events. All events are caused, none are the > > result of an absolute factor called 'will'. > > > > If people had the power of the 'will' they could > > cause change at will, but we know from our own > > experience that people cannot change base metals > > into gold, no matter how hard they try, right?
