Attribution

Important note: All the posts on this blog were written by Bob Harwood (AKA 'zendancer') on the forum spiritualteachers.proboards.com. I have merely reposted a collection of them in blog format for the convenience of seekers. Some very small mods were made on occasion to make posts readable outside of the forum setting they were made in.

Beer koan

Okay, so a guy goes to his refrigerator and pulls out three cans of beer, a Miller Lite, and a Coors, and a Corona. He sets the cans down on the table in front of himself and thinks, "Hmmm, I either have free will or I don't. If I have free will, then I get to choose which beer I want to drink, but if I don't have free will, then the universe will make a decision using this body/mind that has nothing to do with me, and it is out of my hands entirely. What is the deepest existential truth of the matter?" After an hour of contemplation, he saw through the issue, and realized which beer he was going to drink and why.

Question one: Which beer did he select?
Question two: How did free will, or the lack thereof, affect his selection?
Question three: Did he exhibit free will?