Freedom and
Choice
Ken McLeod WINTER 2012
tricycle
Breaking free from the tyranny of
reaction
A few years ago, I was teaching a workshop on
the Heart Sutra. We had just finished that long list of negations
and everyone was a bit off balance, having had the rug pulled out
from under them four or five different ways. The next lines were
“Because for bodhisattvas there is no attainment, they rest,
trusting the perfection of wisdom.”
“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.