BLACK SWAN
Rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno
(A rare bird in the lands and very much like a black swan)
Juvenal, Roman poet 2nd Century CE
Some expressions just sound more impressive when you say them in in Latin, like vise versa or carpe diem. “Black swan” isn’t one of them. In fact, most of us would rather not know about black swans. But when if we stop and think about it, isn’t the current use of the term about as Buddhist a concept as we can find?
Back in Juvenal’s day, a black swan meant there was no such thing, all swans had white feathers. Saying it was a black swan was saying it was impossible. That is until the age of discovery when a Dutch exploration party spotted them in1697 in Western Australia. The term took on a new and different meaning; the one still used today “…a perceived impossibility might later be disproven.”
We have black swan events in science, religion, financial markets, geopolitics, medicine, ideas, and disease and, in our own personal lives. One model for black swan events says it has three aspects:
- nothing we know from the past can be used to predict them
- since we can’t predict them we are unprepared for the catastrophic life changing events they bring
- and, as humans we have a need for explanations - after the fact of such catastrophic events, we come up with explanations and say we could have, would have, should have predicted them.
Beginning to sound a little familiar? We came face to face with two black swans in 2020: Covid and the February 20 stock market crash and then its recording breaking volatile ups and downs. And true to the third aspect of the model - there are those now claiming these were predictable and action was not taken soon enough to reduce their harmful impact.
Our knowledge is limited. We simply do not have the ability to connect all the causes and conditions that bring about these events. Further, we are attached to the ideas of a predictable future, I know I am. And the more the future deviates from my expectations, the more frustrated and unhappy I become and end up in what I call dukkhaland.
Someone complained the other day as to why history books are continuously being rewritten. This falls neatly into the 3rd aspect of black swan events. As time goes by, distance is created between an event and our knowledge of the causes and conditions leading to that event. New facts, new research, and new findings are uncovered that were not known at the time. A history professor once said the history of an event cannot be written accurately until at least 50 years has gone by.
As humans, by definition, we can’t predict black swan events. But, as Buddhists we continue to understand the teachings of dependent origination; causes and conditions; impermanence and our own limited human bonbuness. Our teachings are ancient and rational. The Four Noble Truths explain the way of the world. It is only our unrelenting attachments that make the reality of this life more difficult.
Namo Amida Butsu.
In Gassho,
Rev. Anita
rev.anita.cbt@outlook.com
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