Watching the sea, with its choppy water, I had the sense I was observing
some alien form of society. The way the crests and valleys would dance
with each other, changing places, it seemed like the water was
communicating with itself in a manner unintelligible to conscious
thought. I witnessed populations continuously manifesting and
dissolving, imbued with a latent intelligence, carrying forth living and
dying in a drama that was all their own. This life was merely the
result of energy, abundant and mysterious, on the surface of the ocean,
the surface of the physical realm, not dissimilar to humanity in this
respect. We are intelligent, yes, but how much of this human drama is
no more than the interplay of energy (karma?) in the medium that is
sentient biological lifeforms? Scientists and mathematicians can
describe the action of waves, outlandishly intricate and random though
it may be, with vectors and calculus and algorithms. Though there may
be orders of magnitudes more variables involved, it seems that, by and
large, a sufficiently smart, talented, and studious collective of
scientists and mathematicians (perhaps a hyper-intelligent, non-human
species) could describe our human drama with high math and vectors and
algorithms as satisfactorily as we describe the movement of the sea.
Human fluid dynamics. Then again, when it comes to nuclear physics,
although scientists are able to predict with a very high degree of
accuracy the time it takes for half of a sample of a given nuclide to
decay away and what manner of decay it is likeliest to undergo, they are
not (yet?) able to determine WHEN or WHY any given atom of said nuclide
will decay or how. Humanity may be like this, instead of like the ocean.
I may be wrong about a couple points. It may not be possible to
completely account for all the variables involved in the interplay of
energy in the sea. And for all I know, some scientists may have already
started to crack the code of individual atoms' fates. But I am pretty
sure that we will not ever arrive at an accurate, satisfactory
explanation for human behavior. Even if sociologists and psychologists
can predict that one in ten people will steal the spare change from the
dish at the convenience store, and even if they can further explain the
indicators which made this action more likely in the tenth person and
unlikely in the previous nine, I doubt very much we can ever know for
certain WHY people do or do not do any particular thing. Zazen, the
spiritual life generally, can have a transformative effect on karma. I
think the impulse to seek the great self is universal, but listening to
that small whisper inside is not. Why do some people listen and some do
not? Why do some people keep following the trail of breadcrumbs and
others walk away? How revolutionary is the path that goes against the
stream if a high degree of proclivity is the threshold for seeking it
out to begin with? Christians may answer these questions with "the
grace of God", and I think more than a few Buddhists may answer with
something similar. More and more, I feel like I can count myself among
them. Because really, I don't fucking know. And I don't think I can
know. I think subjects like these lie beyond some philosophical event
horizon, past which the mechanisms for understanding just do not
function. Like atoms, like waves, humanity is to some degree
predictable, and to some degree a baffling mystery. I think most of the
universe may be that way. That's fine.
As an afterthought, I recently had the opportunity to ask a zen teacher a
question, and I asked "what is free will really like?" His eventual
answer was something to the effect of: you need to stop taking for
granted the framework which gives rise to this question; as the
relationship to this framework changes, the question can't continue to
exist. I feel like this is a modern form of "the question does not suit
the case". I'll square with you: I am bothered by the things I do,
sometimes, and I don't really understand why I am the way I am, and this
troubles me often. This is one reason I have been trying to sort this
issue out. Another is my concern for human beings' future as a whole.
The concern is big. I realize, though, that troubling myself over
esoteric, philosophical conundrums does nothing but muddle me about.
Maybe I should instead try to make peace with the limits of reason and
speculation and put my efforts into seeing beyond this framework or
whatever.
