“When he reaches the
perfection of wisdom, can a bodhisattva choose to do whatever he wants?” a
young man asked.
“The illusion of choice
is an indication of a lack of freedom,” I replied. He looked at me, stunned,
then turned around and gently banged his head against the wall as he said, “Now
my head really hurts.”
Most people equate choice
and freedom. It seems so reasonable. Freedom means you are free to choose,
right? It means you are free from restrictions. If you can’t choose, then you
are not free. And it would seem to follow that the more choice you have, the
more freedom you have.
But it doesn’t work out
that way.
The more options you
have, the more energy you have to invest in making decisions. Which shampoo?
Which car? Which dress? Which restaurant? Which movie? Your energy and
attention are consumed by these decisions, and you have less left with which to
live your life. I recently met a young entrepreneur who had reduced the number
of items he owned to 15 (including clothes, just one pair of jeans). His aim
was to reduce choice in his daily routine so that he could focus his attention
on his business. It reminded me that during my three-year retreat, I had only
two sets of clothes. The aim was the same: to reduce choice so that I could
focus attention on meditation practice.
Many people deliberately
eliminate choice and the need for decisions by adopting set schedules. They
conserve energy for important rather than routine decisions. Research into
consumer behavior shows that people are more likely to buy devices with more
options, but they are less likely to use them because it takes too long to
figure out how to do even the simplest task.
What does choice give
you? One answer is that choice makes it possible for you to shape your world
according to your preferences. All this does is to enable you to fashion a
world that is an extension of your own patterns. With modern technology, you
can weave a cocoon of your preferences and rarely run into anything that
contradicts them. Google now keys its searches to fit your online behavior,
further cocooning you in your own world. In other words, too much choice is a trap.
You end up isolated from the richness and complexity of life.
Choice is a dubious
blessing when it comes to spiritual practice—in fact, when it comes to any
creative endeavor. Great art is often the result of restriction in form, in
materials, in themes. The restrictions concentrate attention and spur
creativity. It is the same in practice. How do you increase your capacity in
paying attention? By eliminating all choice. One posture. One object. Rest
right there. No choice. And, as all of us know, it’s not easy.
The lack of choice brings
you directly into contact with the way you habitually ignore, shut down,
manipulate, or control your experience. When you have no choice, you have to
learn how to relate to what life brings you. You can’t weave a comfortable
cocoon. On the other hand, by restricting your choice of actions, you can
develop an internal discipline of not reacting. This is why moral discipline
was traditionally seen as the basis for meditation practice.
When I look at my own
path, once I started to study with Kalu Rinpoche, I didn’t have much choice.
Tradition and instruction took over. Learn Tibetan, do these practices, then
this practice, and so on. The three-year retreat was the same, one practice
after another. No choice. Because of those restrictions, I couldn’t avoid my
own emotional material. It came out in quite brutal ways.
By the time I left
retreat, all doors to practice were closed for me in the tradition in which I
had originally trained. Yet something else had formed—a firm, way-seeking mind,
to use Suzuki Roshi’s phrase. In the years since, I have come to appreciate
that a firm, way-seeking mind is the most important quality to cultivate. With
it, you are able to work through any obstacle. I simply don’t see how you can
develop that if you can choose just what fits with you.
One of the functions of
monasteries, retreats, ethical codes, and other structures associated with
spiritual practice is to eliminate choice. When people attend the relatively
strict discipline at Tassajara Zen Center, for instance, they come away feeling
rejuvenated and refreshed, precisely because they have had no choice for a few
days. They feel free, alive, awake in a way that they don’t in their regular
lives. Prisoners who take up a meditation practice have reported that by
restricting their range of actions even beyond the limitations of prison and
just sitting in meditation, they find a freedom they never suspected was
possible.
What is freedom? It is
the moment-by-moment experience of not being run by one’s own reactive
mechanisms. Does that give you more choice? Usually not. When you aren’t run by
reactions, you see things more clearly, and there is usually only one, possibly
two courses of action that are actually viable. Freedom from the tyranny of reaction
leads to a way of experiencing life that leaves you with little else to do but
take the direction that life offers you in each moment. Hence, the illusion of
choice is an indication of a lack of freedom.
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