The VIMALAKIRTI SUTRA and Free Will
Remember that in Buddha Dharma we use 'advaya' which means "not two'", thus there is freedom from both extremes. (skt. dvaya anta mukta).
“Then the crown prince Manjusri said to the Licchavi Vimalakirti, "We have all given our own teachings, noble sir. Now, may you elucidate the teaching of the entrance into the principle of non-duality!"
Thereupon, the Licchavi Vimalakirti kept his silence, saying nothing at all.
The crown prince Manjusri applauded the Licchavi Vimalakirti: "Excellent! Excellent, noble sir! This is indeed the entrance into the non-duality of the bodhisattvas. Here there is no use for syllables, sounds, and ideas."
Alright then, where do we go from here? To the real world.
First we must understand the idea of ADVAYA clearly.
If one experiences the emptiness of form that is good.
If one experiences the emptiness of no-form that is good.
If one recognizes that since both are emptiness,“form is no-form and no-form is form”, then that is good. But remember that these must be direct experiences not mental deductions or conclusions. This is precisely the point of the Prajnaparamita Sutra.
It is equally clear that since Samsara (the correct illusions) and the Nirvana (primordial experience) are also one, that as an illusion the statements that “form is form” and the statement “no-form is no-form” are also both true. This is the other part of the Prajnaparamita Sutra.
In religious tradition and religious meditations the state in which form and no-form are seen as emptiness is reached and this is interpreted logically as the state of No-Duality. This was the error of the Bodhisattvas. This is where the religious groups discover a union with the Supreme Being. Discovering that supreme being they stop. Mahamudra and the Chan primordial discovery go beyond.
If one simply names NO-DUALITY as such, one creates automatically the concept of DUALITY. Look at that within your own mind for a moment and you will see that that is so.
Equally the religious person who discovers GOD will automatically generate the idea of ALL THAT IS NOT GOD.
In both cases, Duality has once more been created by the word. That is called ABSOLUTE DUALITY and is not acceptable in Buddha Dharma and was not to Vimalakirti.
When one goes beyond ABSOLUTE DUALITY one can only encounter the silence which has no words. That silence can be described with words, but incorrectly, because words are the direct enemy of the Primordial State. That is so because they allow duality to enter. Only when the words are ALWAYS consciously perceived as A TOOL will the Primordial State, “the presence,” be established in Samsara and Mara defeated.
The awakened person does not use words except as a tool. Thus his attitudes, intentions and actions are not ruled by thought. He is seldom thinking and sensations and discriminations are divorced from consciousness unless the natural system provokes those experiences as a tool.
Then there is no logical decision-making in the awakened human creature. There is however logical information manipulation, ordering, calculation, etc., which is creative. However, apparent logical decison-making is necessary to reach that point. What we then call FREE CHOICE is a myth.
Is then all conditioned? In the un-awakened human creature, almost all is conditioned. Conditioned by the presence of the Agents of conditioning, which are the various identities. In the awakened person, what is essential to be conditioned (selected as such by the natural system) IS CONDITIONED. This saves the organism precious time and energy and leaves the system free for the real motor of the system, which is neither FREE WILL nor DETERMINISM.
The true human process is governed by the interface of Samsara with Nirvana in which the primordial state rules and illusion is the tool for survival of the life force.