I lately bought that query whereas instructing a retreat.
I answered no.
I do not imagine in free will. So how may I imagine that meditation is for everybody? Since we do not actually get to decide on whether or not to be satisfied of its advantages or not.
Just as a result of I do not imagine in free will doesn’t suggest that I imagine that every thing’s already been written within the stars, and that, due to this fact, we will simply sit again and loosen up, as a result of every thing that’s destined for us, or that we’re destined for, will occur regardless.
Not believing in free is a tough tablet to swallow. I get it.
Because it very a lot looks like we’re making choices. It looks like I selected to drink a cup of espresso this morning, and that I may simply as nicely have chosen to drink a cup of tea, or a glass of apple juice as an alternative.
It appears that if we dealt with a state of affairs poorly, it was our fault, and that we may have dealt with it higher.
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When I look into my very own thoughts I acknowledge (fairly simply) that ideas merely seem and disappear. I’ve no management over them. I do not writer them. They will not be situated anyplace. They simply come and go. So sooner or later a thought got here into ‘my’ thoughts and satisfied ‘me’ to have a cup of espresso. Another thought (or impulse) made me pour out the final of the cup as a result of I may really feel that the caffeine was making ‘me’ edgy and my abdomen upset.
The first time somebody informed me a few 10-day silent meditation retreat — it was again within the early aughts — it seemed like absolute insanity to me. Why would somebody topic themselves to one thing like that?
Why was that my response? My response got here out of the the enormous net of causes and situations that we’re all embedded in. My response was the results of every thing that had ever occurred to me earlier than. Everything my mother and father taught me, every thing society and my tradition taught me. It was the results of the climate that day, what I had eaten, whether or not I’d had an disagreeable or nice interplay with somebody earlier than.
And how come I ultimately modified my thoughts? Well, I modified my thoughts as a result of identical large net of causes and situations.
I modified my thoughts as a result of I had the nice fortune of being uncovered to the practices of meditation by a instructor who by way of their talent at transmitting the teachings managed to persuade me that occurring a 10-day Vipassana would do me good.
And it did.
We will not be separate entities, we aren’t impartial brokers that may function outdoors this net of causes and situations. I feel that is clear to see. Different nations’ cultures and values and sweetness beliefs fluctuate. Fashion developments are actual. A jean reduce we beforehand thought ugly, we’ll typically change our thoughts about after we’ve been ‘satisfied’ by folks round us, by vogue magazines and billboards that this reduce truly is sweet.
If we reside close to a lake and cling round individuals who love fishing, chances are high a lot higher that we’ll additionally get into fishing than if we lived in a land-locked place and none of our pals fished.
This is why it issues who we encompass ourselves with.
This is why presenting good arguments matter.
This can also be why, in case you’re not satisfied that meditation is a worthwhile factor, one thing that significantly may have an effect on the standard of your life (for the higher) you are type of off the hook.