The Anatomy of a Free Choice
La Anatomía de una Elección Libre
A reflection on how decisions arise, distinguishing between conditioned, automatic choosing and the free choice that seems to come from beyond the mind.
The Anatomy of a Free Choice
A reflection on how decisions arise, distinguishing between conditioned, automatic choosing and the free choice that seems to come from beyond the mind.
Consider what a decision actually involves. You look at the options. There is no decision if there aren't alternatives. Let's say there is A and B, left or right. You think about what the possibilities of A are, what the possibilities of B are, and you contemplate. All of this takes place in thought. Going left, going right. Left is the lake, right is the mountain. I want to go for a swim, but I also want to go for a climb, and so on.
Automatic choosing from conditioning
At the moment that choice happens, we can talk about choosing from conditioning: automatic choosing, which comes from the past. There is no discernment in it. It is simply automatic.
Now, let's say that automatic choosing is not happening, and instead there is discernment. You are looking at two options that are provided by the mind. The mind is providing. You ask the mind for the possibilities of A and the possibilities of B, and the mind provides images and, to some degree, alternatives: what is the positive, what is the negative. All of that information, all of that imagination, is the magic of the tool of our mind.
Where free choice comes from
But then, at the moment of choosing, let's say there is a free choice, which by definition is a choice that is not based on automatic patterns from the past (basically not a choice that is already pre-made). If there is a free choice, the choice comes from somewhere you cannot quite identify. You cannot place it. It comes from beyond the mind. It will feel like "I chose," but if there is genuine discernment, the choosing is happening outside of the mind. It is happening while observing the mind.
A choice that is without discernment, a choice that is conditioned, is happening within the mind. And so it is automatic.