Sunyata and the coming financial collapse

James Rickards in his book Currency Wars, describes the conditions and causes of a collapse in the financial market in this way:

"Following is one scenario...the triggering event happens at the start of trading day in Europe. A Spanish government bond auction fails unexpectedly and Spain is briefly unable to roll over some maturing debt... ...enough to cause a few Dutch pension fund dollar stalwarts to change their mind in favour of gold...the dollar quickly moves outside its previous trading range to hit new lows...stress in the foreign exchange markets immediately transfers to the dollar-based stock, bond and derivatives markets in the same way an earthquake morphs into a tsunami."

Economists and authors have described the underlying instability of complex systems that lay in wait for the triggering event that adds to the built-up of financial stresses in the global economic system, tipping the balance from the status quo into global disintegration and collapse. The proverbial Black-Swan event. This in-turn has caused a number of economic commentators to wheel out the metaphor of an avalanche being triggered by the last snow flake that lands to help explain the concept.

In all these descriptions and metaphors I am struck by the alignment of the Buddhist maxim that nothing arises independently, the concept and topic of this blog known as emptiness or Sunyata. 

Buddhists have long identified that all of observed existence is a result of causes and conditions and nothing exists independently, or in other words, there is no independent origination. A thing occurs (an avalanche), only as a result of causes (the last snow flake to land) and the existent conditions (a build-up of snow). But the Buddhist insight of Sunyata is much more profound, as it is recursive and exhibits the self-similarity that is the hallmark of the fractal nature of the universe. For instance, the causes (falling snow flakes) and conditions (build-up of snow) are themselves the result of their own respective causes and conditions and so on infinitely, demonstrating the interconnectedness and interdependence of all things. This is so significant that the Buddhists maintain that wisdom and enlightenment come from a deep realisation of Sunyata being the nature of our reality and that without that, we are all living in a delusional state that gives rise to Greed, Anger and Ignorance (The Three Poisons).

What’s more, the realisation of Sunyata provides an understanding of the impermanence of all things. That is, the seeds of an object’s destruction are sown into the very creation of the thing itself, as the nature of that destruction is dependent on the causes and conditions of the destruction event, of which the object is a part. This is no better exemplified than the terminal growth of debt being the conditions for the destruction of a debt based global fiat currency system, with the cause that triggers its destruction being a failed auction of sovereign debt (bonds) as described by Rickards.

In any event (literally), we can certainly see the Greed, Anger and Ignorance of our so called leaders, the global bankers and war mongers everywhere as a clear demonstration of their failure to grasp the concept of Sunyata or the nature of avalanches and by definition, their lack of wisdom and their fundamental delusion.

Namaste,

Gino