Which came first?
The chicken or the egg?But the chicken is in the egg,
But the egg is in the chicken.Without the chicken, there is no egg.
Without the egg, there is no chicken.The chicken and egg are interdependent.
The chicken and egg are not independent.Everything arises from many causes and conditions.
Nothing arises from no cause or condition.
The above is inspired from ‘Beyond the Self: Teachings on the Middle Way’ by Thich Nhat Hanh:
‘Causes and conditions’ (因缘) and ‘dependent co-arising’ carry a similar meaning and are are at the heart of the Buddha’s teaching. ‘Causes’ refers to the seed or principle condition. ‘Conditions’ refers to the other necessary conditions that are not the principal ones. In the Chinese character for ’cause’ (因), the word ‘great’ is pictured inside four walls. If something is to become great, it must break through those boundaries. When you look at a mustard seed, it’s small; the conditions aren’t there for it to be large. But when the mustard seed is put into the earth and watered, it becomes a great plant. The conditions to bring the mustard seed to fruition are water, earth, fertilizer, warmth, and so on. Notice that the conditions are also causes. But the primary cause, of course, is the seed itself. The subsidiary causes are the conditions necessary to support the primary cause to develop.