Is There Free Will?

Listen close.

In Heart Drops of Kuntu Zangpo, it states clearly:

“Appearances arise as the natural display of awakened awareness”

—and not from some autonomous agent making individual decisions.

The basis (gzhi) of all is the unborn, unceasing nature of mind—pure rigpa [primordial awareness], which is beyond conceptual elaboration and choice. What you think of as "free will" is just wind and karmic residue flapping around in the hollow skull of habitual conditioning.

In The Precious Treasury, Shar rdza Rinpoche says:

“The true freedom is not the freedom to choose, but freedom from the chooser”

—from the mistaken identity itself.

So no, you don’t have free will.You have momentum—karma, ignorance, and deluded projections.

True freedom is only found in the collapse of the delusion of a self that chooses.Rainbow Body is not achieved by deciding to do yoga on Sundays.It’s achieved when all that believes it chooses disintegrates into clear light.

What is it in you right now that still wants to believe in a self who chooses?

🌀 Enter the Lineage Stream Yourself

You’ve glimpsed the razor’s edge between illusion and awareness. Now walk it.

If these words stirred something ancient in you—something older than thought, something truer than choice—then don’t stop here. The teachings of Bön and Dzogchen aren’t meant to be admired. They’re meant to cut.

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🧠 Understanding the Teachings: A Primer on Bön, Dzogchen, and Key Terms

For those approaching this for the first time—or simply seeking a deeper understanding—here’s an AI-powered explanation of the key terms and principles referenced in this post:

🔹 Bön

Bön is the ancient spiritual tradition indigenous to Tibet. Though often considered separate from Buddhism, Bön shares many similarities with Vajrayāna, including the profound system of Dzogchen—the teachings on the natural, primordial state. In Bön, the ultimate view is that reality is already complete, pure, and perfect. Practice is about recognizing that, not manufacturing it.

🔹 Dzogchen (Great Perfection)

Dzogchen is the pinnacle teaching of both Bön and Nyingma schools of Tibetan spirituality. It doesn't seek to purify, fix, or change the mind, but to recognize its nature—which is already luminous, empty, and aware.

From this view, all appearances arise as spontaneous, self-liberated expressions of rigpa (primordial awareness). The sense of "I" who chooses, judges, and acts is seen as a mistaken overlay—a hallucination clinging to a center that never existed.

🔹 Rigpa

Rigpa is non-dual awareness—unfabricated, non-conceptual, and immediately present. It is not what you think with, but what sees the thinking. When you rest in rigpa, the sense of separation between observer and observed collapses.

🔹 Gzhi (Basis)

Gzhi is the foundational ground or base of all experience. It is unborn, unceasing, and beyond time. From it arise all phenomena—dreams, emotions, appearances—not because of a creator or decision-maker, but as spontaneous expressions of its own nature, like reflections in a mirror.

🔹 Rainbow Body

A realized practitioner who stabilizes recognition of rigpa can dissolve their physical body into light at death—a phenomenon called Rainbow Body. This is not a metaphor. It is the ultimate fruit of dissolving the illusion of self, control, and effort.

🔹 The Chooser vs. Freedom

In the West, freedom is often defined as the ability to make choices. In Dzogchen, that’s considered bondage. The chooser—the “I” that claims credit—is a byproduct of grasping.

True freedom is not the ability to choose between Samsaric options.True freedom is freedom from the illusion that there is a chooser at all.

🌬️ Final Reflection

Ah, the age-old question: “Is there free will?”

From the perspective of Dzogchen, your so-called "free will" is the dance of ignorance—an illusion spun by ego clinging to the fiction of choice while trapped in dualistic delusion.

And yet, here you are. Reading this.

So the real question is: Who?