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THE SNOW LION BUDDHIST NEWS & CATALOG
"The Ninth Bounce, Interdependence—Yet Again"
by Christi Cox
If one had the right kind of smarts, the mathematics of a gambler let's say, one could determine the trajectory of a pool ball as it ricochets around the green felt of its world. That is to say, you could calculate the ball's position pretty closely for its first three bounces—as all pool sharks know. But let's say a particularly complicated shot requires several trajectorial shifts.
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At nine bounces, the mathematics becomes complicated in ways beyond the reach of most of us. According to an expert on chaos theory whom I heard on NPR recently, at nine bounces the equation needs to include the gravitational pull of each of the people in the room—the pool players, the bartender, the girlfriends hanging by the pinball machine. By the fifty-third bounce, the calculations for the location of that ball now require the factoring in of the behaviors of every elemental particle in our world.
That's so mind-bogglingly metaphorical that it bears repeating. By our fifty-third bounce, our very location in our green world is determined by the actions of every element around us. Even at nine—well. I walk into a party and begin that peculiar zig-zag motion required to get through a room filled with people one could or could not theoretically greet. Perhaps the first three ricochets are predictable, but after that the complex gravitational fields between everyone in the room throws my personal math right out the window. I may never get to disappear into that cozy side pocket of a good friend on the other side of the room for whom I was heading.
And, yes. Interdependence, once again.
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Christi Cox is co-editor of the Dalai Lama's book, Path to Bliss.
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