Even the most apparently conscious, voluntary, intentional, well-reasoned, apparently freely-chosen and self-initiated action, when we begin to look closely at everything that was involved in making it happen, turns out to be the result of infinite causes and conditions that include everything from a leaf falling thirty years ago in New Jersey to the Big Bang. When we give any action careful attention as it unfolds, we can find no discernible 'me' initiating it or carrying it out at any stage along the way. No one 'chooses' to be a serial killer or to have a narcissistic personality disorder. Buddha had no choice about being Buddha, just as Hitler had no choice about being Hitler. The drug addict who recovers has no choice about recovering, just as the addict who doesn't recover has no choice about not recovering. Nothing could be other than it is in this moment. It is one undivided happening that includes Buddha and Hitler, recovering and not recovering, all as one inseparable event, one seamless ocean."
~Joan Tollifson, Nothing to Grasp (p.41)
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