(With a commentary by Claude/Anthropic )
Duane Elgin
This essay explores one of humanity’s most transformative spiritual insights—exemplified by the Buddha’s description of his of awakening to the nature of reality in two-words: “interdependent co-arising.” Interdependent manning that reality is a completely unified and interconnected as a singular whole. Co-arising meaning tat reality is not static but is continuously emerging anew at every moment. Therefore, this phrase penetrates to the heart of reality and describes all that exists is a unified whole that is continuously emerging freshly at each moment. Far from being unique to Buddhism, the insight of a unified and continuously regenerating universe appears across all major spiritual traditions—from Christian mystics to Islamic Sufis, from Hindu sages to Indigenous wisdom keepers—revealing a universal truth that transcends all boundaries. Because this same understanding has been recognized by spiritual explorers in diverse wisdom traditions throughout history it is an experientially direct insight about the nature of reality, and serves as a bridge to all the world’s wisdom. At the heart of this cosmology lies the revolutionary perception: the universe is not a collection of solid, separate objects, but more deeply is a dynamic process of continuous creation where everything arises new and fresh at every moment as an interconnected whole. By recognizing that we inhabit a living, regenerative universe rather than a dead, mechanical one, we are called to recognize every aspect of reality as expressions of a single, continuously creative cosmos learning to know itself through infinite eyes, infinite perspectives, all arising together in the eternal dance of interdependent co-arising.