do i have any free will i have had the experience after meditating a lot that i am only observing myself and action but have no control only over my emotions through meditation thank you um i think we do have free will but only in the sense of being free to
incline the mind in a certain direction in the present moment.
And the word free will and having free will is maybe just an inexact or an inapplicable description of what's really going on, but in some sense
if we had a perfect language that was actually based on reality, then in some sense there is free will, in the sense of being able to do, to make a decision in the present moment.
The non-self comes with the fact that you can't go beyond that, beyond inclining the mind.
You can't force your, even if you want to just lift your hand, you can't force the hand to lift.
All you can do is incline your mind
towards the manifestation of the lifting of the hand.
And if your intention is strong enough and if the situation that you're in is favorable, the hand will raise.
But what you realize and what you see in meditation is that that's not always the case.
That sometimes the
intention is there and the result doesn't come about and you realize that this is where suffering is caused by not getting what you want another thing you realize is that there's that the more you intend the more you decide to do this or decide to do that
The more stress and potentially suffering that you cause, the more expectations you have and desires you have and stronger your intentions, the more you build up and the more you set yourself up for disappointment when you overstep.
Because you overstep based on your desires, you overstep what's possible.