Everything comes from somewhere else. And nothing comes from somewhere else.
EVERYTHING COMES FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE
In one sense, everything we are comes from somewhere else.
The water in my body was rain and will be ocean. All the materials in my body come from food and ultimately star stuff, and it will go somewhere else.
In life, my privilege and limitations largely come from family, society, culture, and what generations of people have built and created.
In terms of skills and abilities, it all comes from somewhere else. Even the motivation to learn, develop, and create something comes from somewhere else.
As a(n apparently) separate being, I cannot take credit for any of it.
This human self is the local expression of the universe as a whole.
Everything I am has causes going back to the beginning of time and stretching out to the widest extent of the universe. (If there is a beginning and widest extent.)
All of what’s here is an expression of existence as a whole.
This is all within the world of stories. It happens within the world of science and knowledge and analysis.
NOTHING COMES FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE
At the same time, nothing comes from somewhere else.
As what I am, I find I am capacity for the world as it appears to me.
To me, the world happens within and as my sense fields.
To me, the world happens within and as what I am.
Nothing comes from somewhere else. It’s here.
There is no distance to anything. To me, it all happens here, within and as what I am.
Any ideas of past and future happen here. They happen within and as what I am.
In my immediate noticing, nothing comes from somewhere else.
EVERYTHING AND NOTHING COMES FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE
These two orientations are pointers. They are medicine for specific conditions.
Everything comes from somewhere else. This reminder and exploration is medicine for taking ourselves as fundamentally a separate being and taking all the credit and blame for who we are. In practice, we can see it all comes from somewhere else, benefit from that insight, and still take responsibility for our words, action, and life, and how we relate to whatever happens in us and our life.
Nothing comes from somewhere else. This too is medicine for taking ourselves as most fundamentally a human being in the world. To ourselves, in our first-person experience, we are capacity for it all and what it all happens within and as. This pointer is an invitation to explore this for ourselves. It’s an invitation to find it here and now.
As who I am, as this human being, everything comes from somewhere else and will go somewhere else.
As what I am, as capacity and what the world to me happens within and as, nothing comes from somewhere else.
Recognizing both also helps us to unstick from one or another view. There is some truth to both.
And reality is always more than and different from any view.