At the End of the Day, We Don’t Know What’s Going to Happen

The frightening possibilities [of the world’s current situation] cannot be denied, but neither can they be taken as facts. The only fact is that we don’t know what will happen in the future, and to imagine that we do is foolish. It is not unusual for history to proceed by a process of reversal: momentum is going one direction and is unexpectedly replaced by momentum in the opposite direction. The Buddhist teachings on karma are relevant here. They tell us that our positive actions will always, perhaps in some unforeseeable way, lead to good results not only for ourselves but for the world. They also tell us that the warp and woof of causality weave a tapestry so complex that no one but an enlightened being could understand it. So hope is never out of place, even in the darkest times.

Besides, our despair does nothing for anyone. To take action for a better future requires an optimistic spirit that is capable of seeing possibility even in seemingly hopeless situations. Our anxiety about the future is not as rational as we might think. In fact, it’s a kind of personal angst we are projecting onto the world, which is beyond the influence of our projections. The world has its own path to follow, a path much more mysterious than any we could imagine.

Norman Fischer
from When You Greet Me I Bow; Notes and Reflections from a Life in Zen