Discernment and Free Choice
Discernimiento y libre elección
A question about whether discernment is a quality of consciousness, and how genuine choice can arise when there is no separate self to choose.
Discernment and Free Choice
A question about whether discernment is a quality of consciousness, and how genuine choice can arise when there is no separate self to choose.
Would you say that discernment is a quality of consciousness?
Yes, though we don't have to call it consciousness. We can call it totality, or reality. A free choice comes from totality.
This is where it becomes interesting and paradoxical: if there is no "I" to choose, is it even a choice?
That's why I'm saying it comes from somewhere that you cannot know. It's mysterious. It's identical with being.
The problem of the chooser
The problem is what you define the chooser to be. If you think the choice is coming from a separate self, it's probably going to be conditioned. That's one way to look at discernment.
But there is another angle. If you can look at what is thought and what is not thought, that also involves discernment. The looking at thought and sensation, for example: if discernment is present, if you can see the distinction, that seeing is happening outside of thought and outside of sensation. "Outside" is just a word. You could say it's happening before, but not in time.
I know what you mean.
You can also say that a choice is made by the heart, if it is free. That's why so many spiritual traditions place such emphasis on ethical work: so that we can develop discernment.
The ethical work is like a framework for discernment within the mind.
No.