How I Wrote the Book About Making Poor Choices

Many of us have made poor decisions throughout our lives. I’m no exception. I made an unskillful decision just yesterday — probably everyday, at least once. This morning I thought about why I had done what I did. As the thoughts arose surrounding the action I realized it came up from my childhood. I was reacting to someone who died many years ago. Was it because I chose to make the choice? Possibly that choice was not so much a choice but an automatic response predetermined because I was conditioned in some predetermined way.  

Neither free will nor predetermination explains how any of us make our decisions and choices. Free will cannot be the cause of of our choices because the term implies a truly self-existent and autonomous “me” that makes both skillful and unskillful decisions moment-to-moment independent of and unaffected by causes and conditions that create our environment. It also implies that even the decisions we make have an independent being all their own — like choices on a Chinese buffet menu. In all reality, If such an autonomous and self-existing “me” existed, it could not do anything let alone make any rational decisions or choices because it would have to exist independently all by itself as it were the boy in the bubble (my homage to John Travolta).

On the other hand, a life that was predetermined, called “determinism,” implies that the resulting decision independently exists already in the cause. This would make the decision just waiting to pop out and manifest just like a Jack-in-the-box. If we consider this to be true then the the result would already have been produced and no matter other causes and conditions existed at the time, the choice you make could not possibly be affected by any conditions that might arise. To complicate things more, the need for something to arise again that has already arisen would be redundant and therefore unnecessary.

If the result of a decision already existed independently, determined at the time of the cause there it would be unnecessary and needless for it to be made to arise again. There is a corollary to this: if the decision made did not exist at the time of the cause, it could not come to exist. An existent “nothing” cannot become an existent “something.”

If neither free will nor determinism is the case in making decisions and choices, our discussion really comes down to an analysis of how does decision-making occur?

Decisions we made in the past are things you cannot change. They are done. Decisions that you are going to make in the future will depend a lot on what you are doing right now. So this time and place called “now” is the most important place to be.

The world through the “corporate media” insists that things other people are doing on the other side of the world are more important than you are. You do not have to believe that, because it is simply not true. Your world is being shaped by your thoughts, words and actions right now just as my world is being shaped by my thoughts, words and actions. You really should want to understand this process of thinking, speaking and acting. 

What does it mean for the mind to act? What’s the difference between a simple event in the mind, the appearance of a feeling, and an action, the intention behind these events? How are intentions formed? What goes into that process? What kind of perceptions, what kind of questions do you ask yourself? What kind of contact in the mind and the body forces your decisions? Yes, “forces” the word for this. At the time we act we really have no choice in the action. The decisions we make are a response to a given situation, one arising because of causes and conditions. This “environment” we are responding to has its causes and conditions, but so do the decisions we make when confronting this environment. The ecology is complex. Neither is independently self-existing and neither is predetermined. 

The stimuli we experience is the result of not just its own causes and conditioned but also by our past intentions and decisions. Yes, there are “things” out there but we do not just experience a “thing” out there. We perceive the “thing” and we experience that perception. Even though events are taking place all around us we only experience events we have prioritized. It all takes place in the mind and nowhere else.

Throughout the past 20 or so years I have either heard teachers say or heard from my students that they had teachers say, “Right View is No View.” This may be a misinterpretation of the teaching regarding non-attachment, but the Buddha disagreed with that idea of Right View (Samma-ditthi),  In the Maha-satipatthana Sutta: The Great Frames of Reference (Digha Nikaya 22) the Buddha gives an exact definition of Right View. He says, “And what is right view? Knowledge with regard to stress (dukkha), knowledge with regard to the origination of stress, knowledge with regard to the cessation of stress, knowledge with regard to the way of practice leading to the cessation of stress: This is called right view." 

This is one of the problems that arise with our choice making process. Decision making is a cognitive process. Decision making results in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several alternative possibilities. Every decision-making process produces a final choice that may or may not end in an action. The Buddha urged us to make the decisions and choices based up Right View, that is The Four Noble Truths. He did not say we should become emotional or deal with half a truth. He said to examine life’s traumas through the lens of the Four Noble Truths. 

When you or I make decisions we general toss the cattari ariya saccani (Four Noble Truths) to the winds and steam on ahead with emotion completely in control. Emotion prefers bias and propaganda to reality. Emotionalism in choice making is a way of avoiding responsibility. We become reactive to life rather than responsive. People who do not understand Buddhism seem to believe that arahants. They tend to see them as a stereotype who is emotionless and not involved in the world at all. This is not the case. As long as we live in a skin bag we will be subject to the forces of stress and suffering by way of kamma.  Even the Buddha had to admit he not only saw dukkha but felt it too. What makes the decision making process different amongst arahants is that they view life through the lens of the Four Noble Truths. They still make poor decisions time-to-time based upon their kamma. Even high level cosmic Bodhisattvas in the sutras often come across as pompous jerks or beings that have made a bad choice of words or were guilty of impropriety. 

What we often miss too are the two most profound teachings found in the Canon. That is, the Law of Dependent Arising (paticca-samuppāda) and the twenty-four Causal Relations (Patthāna). While most of us have at least a passing knowledge of Dependent Arising, most of us miss the Causal Relations. How these effect us is also a matter of kamma. Because of our kamma we cannot see a larger picture. We focus on something past and not present, hence our choice making becomes skewed. 

My poor decisions are almost always based on the past. Someone in the village called “my mind” says to me, “I know this pattern I know where it is going and I should avoid the consequences of going that route.” All poor decisions are rooted in in delusion, moha. While lust (lobha) and hatred or aversion (dosa) might be there somewhere, delusion is always present. What causes that delusion? It is simply this, an ignoring (ignorance) of the Four Noble Truths, and that includes the Eightfold Path of appropriate practice. Without that as a foundation almost any decision I make will be a bad one. 

You can find Sensei Mui by clicking on this link: Hongaku.