Do you believe in chance?

Causation is central in Buddhist thought

My father was a troubled man. He tried to mask his insecurity either by talking too loudly and a bit too much or by hiding for hours behind his newspaper. He was an atheist and harboured an entrenched distrust for all religion. His only way of connecting to the truth was through being in nature, and I never saw him happier than when he was quietly doing the gardening. He showed genuine delight and curiosity on seeing birds and bugs. Even though he never came to church with the rest of the family, there was one thing in life he did religiously until the end of his days, and that was the football pools. Every week of every year he did the football pools. As far as I recall he only won a small amount a couple of times but the habit remained, defying all probabilities. He genuinely believed in luck and thought it was worthwhile risking his weekly pound to try to win the lottery.

In the UK some 45 million people do the national lottery regularly, that is 70% of the adult population. Educate…