No-Fault Assurance

No-Fault Assurance

If there is anything which is timeless and formless, it has to be without cause. It is that which is without cause that, at the same time, sustains life and exterminates it. The linear mind of man comprehends “dependence”: this, he posits, causes that. He does not fully understand “interdependence”: this cannot cause that, until that causes this. The former is a proposition dependent upon time; the latter is coincident or simultaneous, in which any causation would have to cancel itself out. Though we speak of “a cause” and “an effect,” can you identify even one thing which has ever been caused by one other, single thing? Can you name anything which has ever been the effect of only one other thing? Any cause which produced an effect would have “died” into the effect the moment the effect was “born.” Put another way, since all present things depend on other present things for existence, there is not anything in the “past” which is solely causative for anything in the present. The notion of temporal cause-and-effect is at the root of the idea that universal life is something which has been “planned” or ordered. At the bottom of this scheme is a central Planner who presumably exists in independence. Planning (and execution) is a process in time; the plans— and the Planner—would be dependent upon time. And any plan is a form, and all forms are subject to change. Any set plans of this (presumably infinite) Planner would be finite. The beauty of the cosmos is that everything is okay, purely “because” there is no plan. No matter what happens, in this universe of random chance, it has always been perfectly

okay. The miracle of this cosmos is that not one thing—not one thing—can go wrong. Now, is that beautiful—or what? It is man’s cunning to endlessly solve problems; it’s the universe’s intelligence to have never a problem. Man’s dominion is one of constant control: the domain of the universe is one where everything competently, perfectly, manages itself: everything! Man views himself as “doer,” at cause: the most common conceit is the boast that “I’m good at what I do!” Buddha held up a flower, and most listeners concluded that this signified that something was to follow. But one listener understood that there is not anything in a position to follow; and his smile of response was immediate. No wonder that Buddha passed the flower over to him. One does not listen to a wind chime and inquire as to who composed the music.