Abstract

To what extent can our actions be said to be free and to what extent are they the result of causes? Furthermore, what might "freedom" mean in terms of experience and especially in terms of the creation of conditions conducive to that experience? In the West it has most often been argued that either our actions are always determined or that our actions are at least sometimes "free", in the sense that we might have done otherwise. Kant thought that this issue resulted in an "antinomy of reason": a pair of dichotomous "metaphysical" concepts both implying ontological realities, but which could not properly be derived from reason. ;We find, in Chapter Two, an analogous position with the Buddhist, who regarded "freedom" as an application of the "Middle Path" between absolute determinism and indeterminism . Freedom, for the Buddhist, is defined, in practice, as a state attained through the combined practice of insight, calming, and moral practice. ;In Chapter Three we create an imaginary dialogue between a Buddhist traveler from India and Plato and Aristotle on the practical problem of freedom of action in the moral world. This chapter revolves around the Socratic dictum that: "When a person does evil he harms himself;" and that, therefore, "No one willingly or knowingly does evil." Here, evil becomes the result of a kind of ignorance, which can only be overcome with knowledge. ;In the Fourth Chapter, we turn to the thirteenth century Japanese Zen Master, Dogen, who was especially concerned with the problem of looking but not "seeing". In order to understand Dogen in the context of his times we must consider both his critique of the major Mahayana doctrines, , of "Buddha Nature" and "Original Enlightenment" as well as his reinterpretation, or "reconstruction", of these doctrines, while at the same time reaffirming the basic Buddhist practices of purification and meditation as well as the classical Buddhist teaching of "Dependent Arising"