San Francisco Zen Meditation

Talks and Blog

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Calendar
    • Blog
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • Zen Reading

2/5/2010

Unpredictabilty

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Recently the topic of unpredictability keeps arising. It seems so central to Zen practice, the acceptable that we have really no idea what one moment will hold to the next, which, in turn, allows this moment as it is to be lived. 

Recently I read two passages that I thought we so similar, that I would share them:

The first is from Nassim Taleb, from his book, the Black Swan, which talks about randomness:

Our minds are wonderful explanation machines, capable of making sense out of almost anything, capable of mounting explanations for all manner of phenomena and generally incapable of accepting the idea of unpredictability.  [] events were unpredictable, but intelligent people thought they were capable of providing convincing explanations for them---after the fact.  Furthermore, the more intelligent the person, the better sounding the explanation.  Whats more worrisome is that all these beliefs and accounts appeared to be logically coherent and devoid of inconsistencies.

Taleb goes on in his book to propose that the efficient market strategy is to take into account the unpredictability of truly influential events, and to position yourself to take advantage of them.

Anyway, I was reminded of this passage when I read a similar passage in John Tarrant's book, Bring me the Rhinoceros:

What if it's true that real insight and joy don't come from the direction your expect such things to come from?  If what you really want could come from any direction, that information might change the way you conduct your life. Instead of watching out for danger, you might be vigilant for happiness

So that's whats been banging away inside of me.  That life is utterly unpredictable and that perhaps that is a good thing.  What I am noticing is how hard I work to make sense of how things came to be.  But when I look at those explanations, they are merely stories protecting me from the fear that I really have no idea what is going on and how things happened, and more importantly, WHAT is going to happen.  What I am finding is that when I loosen my belief in those stories that I know what happened and how it happened and how it could have been prevented or how it could be repeated, then I am forced to acknowledge that I cannot predict what will happen.  There is no pattern.  With that, I can honestly start to realize that the most consequential events in my life were unpredicted, and unpredictable.  I have a remarkably poor track record for predicting what would make me happy and fulfilled.  That can be a gift.  Somewhere in accepting that, is a small freedom to accept that happiness could come from anywhere, and anyone.  That I have no idea what will happen, so I can stop trying so hard to control things.  When I let go of the control, it makes it easier to admit that happiness could be at the bottom of a really nasty surprise, and then I find that, often, it is.  It also makes it easier to accept things as they are, which means that they cannot really fail my expectations, because those explanations are no longer really believed. 

Interesting to me also that a Zen teacher and a statistician/financial analyst agree on the same principals. 

Nobody knows whats going on. 

I am going to publish this right now before I erase it again and have to retype it all.

Share

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

Details

    Author(s)

    “A Course on Koans” is the delusion-riddled work of Chris Kufu (“Wind in the Void”) Wilson, who began practicing Zen in 1967. He regards Taizan Maezumi, Robert Aitken, and David Weinstein as his root teachers. Each of them pecked at his shell until he “completed” the never-ending koan curriculum of the Harada-Yasutani lineage.

    Get posts as they are published:

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    October 2016
    March 2016
    July 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    February 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    June 2013
    March 2013
    September 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009

    Categories

    All

    What We Read

    Serina's Travel Blog
    Shoshin
    Zenosaurus
    Eugene Koan Blog
    A Zen Jesuit's Blog
    Christian Koans
    Twelve Step Zen Blog
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Calendar
    • Blog
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • Zen Reading