Re: What is controlling?
Posted: Sat Sep 07, 2013 11:20 pm
The Buddha did not say that individual choices are an illusion or fallacy. He strongly denied determinism/fatalism. Nor did he deny self-control. On the contrary:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .niza.html“I have not, brahman, seen or heard such a doctrine, such a view. How, indeed, could one — moving forward by himself, moving back by himself [2] — say: ‘There is no self-doer, there is no other-doer’? What do you think, brahmin, is there an element or principle of initiating or beginning an action?”[3]
“Just so, Venerable Sir.”
“When there is an element of initiating, are initiating beings [4] clearly discerned?”
“Just so, Venerable Sir.”
“So, brahmin, when there is the element of initiating, initiating beings are clearly discerned; of such beings, this is the self-doer, this, the other-doer. [5]