Can there be freedom if everyone is enslaved?

Question

Isn't freedom just a mindset? You can have someone trapped in your basement, but maybe you're trapped in your house by ninjas running around on the lawn and those ninjas are trapped by immigration services that won't let them run back to Canada, and we're all trapped here on Earth, so is that person in your basement really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things?

Answer 1

Yes I believe it is found in the mind. Buddhism is a path to freedom from suffering. That suffering originates in the addictive quality of the mind and our habitual tendency to grasp at pleasure and push away pain. All addictions stem from these roots.

The Buddhist path offers a spiritual and psychological process of transformation that has proven to be a most effective treatment for our human addiction to thinking and all the suffering we create with the mind. And Buddhist meditation is the most potent tool there is for recovering our original wholeness or Buddha nature.

In these religions and philosophies there was no room for freedom of thought and investigation. All these religions and philosophies advocated the following of a life laid down according to a stereotyped format in which all events, from the beginning to end, according to some not only up to death but up to final liberation, are predetermined and fixed.

Buddhism considered the individual to be in dependent, endowed with free will, capable of thinking freely, choosing freely between alternatives, taking initiative, putting forth effort, and striving. The Buddha emphasized that one is one's own master (Dhammapada. stz. No. 160); that one is responsible for one's purity and impurity (ibid stz. Nos. 161, 165); and one's predicament is one's own creation. Hence, an individual has to use his discriminate knowledge, avoid evil, do good, take the initiative and strive hard to attain liberation. Or true freedom.

Answer 2

The way I see it--"freedom" is just a word,an idea.There can be no "absolute" freedom(practically) and you always have to define WHAT you are exactly free from.

I suppose,in a sense,it can also be a mindset.You may feel independent but since you can't help but depend on various things,you can never be completely free(assuming that independence is a form of freedom)

Answer 3

don't think anyone should be punished for any crime by law. Because in reality we can do anything physically possible. Law is just a way of controlling reality. People should be able to do anything on the grounds that, they can.

Many of you may say that this is stupid, well it probably is. But life is all about what you can and can't do. And true freedom is doing anything because you can.

This above me, is what true freedom is.  So by my standards having a government enslaves anyone under that government.  We don't join a government by choice, we are just born into one at random.

Is having to devote most of your life to a government you didn't choose really freedom.  No.  Sure it is better than some countries.  But that is beside the point.  We aren't really free.

And when you have true freedom, the only question you ever have to ask yourself is, "Should I..?".

Oh right, and the answer is yes.  Even if you are trapped in someone's basement, you are still free to do as you please down there.  And if he has you chained up you are still able to think freely.  No matter what condition you are in, there is always one form of freedom in it.

Answer 4

Well obviously being trapped in the basement is likely going to be a big deal for the person who is trapped.

In the grand scheme of things nothing is really that big of a deal. Meaning that the universe will go on with little change no matter what happens on earth. It doesn't follow that because something doesn't matter "in the grand scheme of things" it doesn't matter at all. In "the grand scheme of things," a horrible murder doesn't matter, but this shouldn't make us indifferent to murder, and it shouldn't make us indifferent to slavery or imprisonment.

I don't think freedom is "just a mindset." I think it depends very much on a material base. A person who is starving is not free, and maybe unless he is a zen master, his mindset is going to be controlled by his material condition. (And even here, his training in zen will itself have been controlled by his material conditions.) Of course, given equal material conditions, some people will be "freer" than others. So I would say to an extent freedom can depend on one's mindset, but but it is not at all accurate to say that this is "just" what freedom is.

Answer 5

Um..someone call in the prescrip for prozac please

Answer 6

I am the big deal in my life. If I am in your basement, yes.

Answer 7

You're close. Freedom is not a mindset, rather a state of being. Think about Gandhi, Jesus, Buddha, etc. They were "present" in the moment, which is what enlightenment is. That's why, when imprisoned, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela were still able to put the lives of others first. It takes a big soul to be able to do that. You're right, even living amidst all the freedom one can imagine, one can be horribly imprisoned within the mind.

Answer 8

Granting your premise that we are all enslaved, then yes, freedom is possible... if we are the ones who created our own enslavement. If enslavement is not a natural human condition then neither is freedom and it can be created also. I don't agree that us being "trapped" on earth is the same thing as being enslaved. Anyway, suffering is suffering and slavery is slavery. Just because someone is suffering in prolonged agony doesn't mean that a person is not justified in expressing the pain in a stubbed toe. Just because someone is enslaved somewhat does not justify doing the same thing to someone else to a greater degree.