Abe, Masao.  "Free Will In Buddhism." Mini-conference on Buddhist-Jewish-Christian Dialogue, May 28, 1986.

Abstract

"Life is common to man and nature. Free will, however, which animals and plants do not possess, is peculiar to human existence. Accordingly, free will is one of the crucial problems which must be addressed if the nature of human existence is to be understood and, as such, is an important issue for human ethics and religion. But, how to understand free will differs according to different cultural and spiritual traditions. Generally speaking, in the West, together with human reason, free will has been grasped positively - often as a principle by which man controls nature and creates culture and civilization. Especially, in the modern intellectual history of the West, the importance of human free will has been strongly emphasized. It has been generally recognized that humans have a capacity to make free choice over and against external necessity. Only through free decision, through the exercise of free will, can one's subjectivity and personality be ligitimately established...In sharp contrast, Buddhism has never taken the notion of will positively, but negatively. That is to say, in Buddhism, the problem of human free will is is grappled with in terms of karma which must be overcome to attain enlightenment or awakening and thereby achieve real freedom. And emancipation from karma does not lead us to a realization of the autonomous pure practical reason as in Kant, the omnipotent will of God as in Christianity, nor to the will of power as in Nietzsche, but rather to the awakening to sunyata or "emptiness" which is entirely beyond any kind of will." - from the Introduction