The chicken or the egg? The obvious answer for which came first
Transcending the pair of opposites to find wholeness + a contemplative exercise
So, which came first: the chicken or the egg? How many times have you tried to solve this age-old question? Isn’t it an interesting thought exercise to figure out which one possibly came first. Isn’t it also obvious that no matter how hard you defended one side of the argument, you could see something true about the other side of the argument. In fact, one recent study found that chickens produce ovocleidin-17 (OC-17) in the uterus which causes the formation of the thickened calcium carbide shell that eggs are made out of. You can check that out on Wikipedia1. In choosing this particular side of the argument, it totally ignores another important piece of information that may suggest that the egg must have come first. You see, chickens, it turns out, are interbred results of multiple species of wild jungle fowls through centuries upon centuries of domestication; with this in mind, well…the chicken emerged from the egg. Instantly, another argument may emerge in another form? “But we are talking about chickens and not breeding…aren’t we?”. Friend, sadly I must point out that in these analysis about which one came first, it may not be too shocking to find out that just this year two men in Indonesia got into this same debate, one of them killing the other2 over his own conviction of the answer.
Even from this unfortunate event, isn’t it so easy to see how the human mind has the tendency to divide reality into binaries: cause and effect, right and wrong, heaven and hell, love and hate, past and future, life and death, rich and poor, good and evil, God and Satan, and on and on and on. What’s absolutely interesting to see is that beneath its apparent simplicity there’s a more fascinating metaphor for the way we approach life’s greatest mysteries. We seek origins, we assign causes, we divide reality into neatly labeled compartments, we push ourselves into this interesting game that we cannot and will never win —one that reflects our deep-rooted desire to make sense of the world through linear thinking. By ‘we’ here, I am in no way pointing to any particular person or quite frankly, not even to humanity at all. I am pointing directly to the wonderous utility of the mind, and the mind is non-personal. It never was. But humanity caught the infection of seeing the mind as personal. Ah! The infection that humanity caught from the proverbial munching of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil! Oh, havent’ you seen that we have been bitten by this bug. We now can see our nakedness. We now want clothes where there was no nakedness. Our eyes are now open to seeing duality where there was none.
Come on! Can’t you see it? Don’t you see our relentless quest to trace everything back to a singular beginning. We crave a starting point—a moment when something emerged from nothing, a first cause that justifies what follows. We argue about a big bang theory. We argue about if life really did start from the Garden of Eden. We argue about who created God before God was created— as if there was ever a beginning. Oh gosh! Can’t you see there was never a beginning and there will never be an end. Can’t you see what eternal life is made of?
What’s even crazier is that this drive for clarity extends beyond biology or philosophy or our evolutionary conversations. It permeates our relationships, our careers, and even our identity. We ask, “Where did this begin?” as if knowing the origin will grant us mastery over the whole. What we haven’t figured out is that, just like the chicken and the egg, many aspects of life defy such simple categorizations.
Our quest for origin, if not taken for comic relief, is only a fool’s chase. You don’t believe me? Okay, read on!
You see, our habit of dividing reality into opposites—cause and effect, creator and created, problem and solution, often forces us to choose one or the other on this crossroads of binaries. By focusing exclusively on one side of the equation, we lose sight of the fact that perhaps there are no causes or effects; as a cause may be an effect and an effect a cause. Neither leads, neither follows—they exist in a perpetual give-and-take, a yin and a yang. Perhaps our pausing to see that there are literally no sides to this allows us to reconsider our approach to properly seeing that there are really no binaries in reality and in truth. Have we paused long enough to wonder if these divisions are as real as they seem? In dividing reality into opposites: light and dark, good and evil, cause and effect, self and other(while I must pause here for a second to acknowledge the reality of these), it also creates an illusion of separation that limits our understanding of the interconnected nature of existence. See, an illusion is not the absence of an image. It’s simply seeing that the image is not as it appears. So, to transcend duality we must see beyond these distinctions and recognize the unity that underpins them. And that is— to perceive the whole rather than just its parts. In fact in seeing the whole, we see that parts are just an illusion of the whole. Easy to see, right? I wish!
Of course, it’s easier said than done and I can’t wait to share with you a contemplative prompt at the end of this essay that will help you see beyond the illusion of dualities from your own direct experience. But first, let’s consder these ideas: when two dances are in perfect synchrony, don’t you see that both dancers dissolve, what then exists is the movements in the dance. And that’s what we love about dances(think synchonized swimmers in the olympics). One step flows into the other creating a seamless rhythm that only makes sense when seen as a whole. The ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism captures this insight through the concept of yin and yang. These two principles are not in conflict but in dynamic balance, each containing a seed of the other. Light cannot exist without darkness or it won’t be light, just as activity is meaningless without rest. Oh, you don’t think so? Let’s look at music! Music would not be music if it didn’t have pauses, some shorter than the other. But there are as many pauses as there are notes. Together, they form a harmonious whole, a wink-wink nod-nod reminding us that life’s apparent polarities are interdependent rather than oppositional.
At this point, you may be thinking, “Seye, are you saying there has to be evil for there to be good!” Oh, darling! You may be missing the point here! There is no good and there’s no evil. Yes, I know. Hold on! Hold on! Hold on! I will explain.
Good and evil are constructs, created by our perception to categorize actions and events in a way that fits within a moral framework. But what we label as "good" or "evil" often depends on context, perspective, and conditioning. A single act can be seen as good by one group and evil by another. In the natural world, these labels dissolve; nature simply is. Let’s examine the natural world further: A lion hunting its prey is neither doing good nor evil, it’s just life unfolding. When we look deeper, we see that what we call "good" or "evil" are expressions of the same underlying reality, each giving meaning to the other within the dance of existence. When we transcend these labels, we find a space where actions and events simply arise, free from the weight of judgment, and part of a greater, interconnected whole whole.
It’s not hard to see that philosophical traditions across the world echo this idea. In Zen buddhism, for example, in a test of a student’s clear seeing or enlightenment, the teacher asks a koan, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?3” In truth, the question was not meant to have a simple answer but to dissolve the very framework of dualistic thinking. A student whose dualistic thinking hasn’t dissolved would have the wrong answer. But a student who gets the answer right gets a response from the teacher that’s marked with silence. In recognition of this silence, the student takes this same silence not as emptiness but as fullness—a direct pointer to the unity beyond opposites. In Advaita Vedanta, for instance, non-duality ( which translates as advaita) emphasizes that the apparent distinctions between self and other, subject and object, are ultimately illusory, dissolving into oneness when truly seen. Beneath these surface differences is really an indivisible oneness. Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, posited that “the path up and down are one and the same,”4 highlights the unity in opposites. Jesus, in teaching what’s today known as the Lord’s Prayer, taught “thy will be done in heaven as it is on earth”. In another, he said, ‘Whatever you bind in heaven shall be bound on earth, whatever you loose on earth shall be loose in heaven5’. Oh, these teachings when seen for what they truly are move one beyond the fragmentation of duality to seeing a different picture…one of wholeness. Did I mention that I can’t wait to the contemplative prompts with you?
So, listen, we don’t even need to wax too philosophical to start seeing these interplay of dualities as wholeness. Look at ecological systems that thrive on the balance of opposites: growth comes from decay(think plants and manure), predator and prey relationships(for there to be a healthy predator, there has to be prey and vice versa). This dynamic interplay of forces is hard to unsee when seen. In fact, look at the gross human experience of love and hate or joy and sorrow or success and failure. At first glance, these emotions and experiences seem irreconcilable. We think love and hate must be different. Yet, romantic love can transform into hate when expectations are unmet, and sorrow often deepens our capacity for joy by making us more appreciative of life’s fleeting moments. It’s this recognition and respect for the pairs that allows us to appreciate the richness of the human experience without being trapped by attachment to one side of a duality or the other. Try making a single side coin— a coin with one side and not the other.
Okay, all of this talk and examples and we haven’t gotten to the actual meat of this matter: how do we see beyond this duality? Before I go into any of my juicy prompts I will reveal the secret. In the late Anthony DeMello’s voice, he says “awareness, awareness, awareness”. It’s all about awareness. No, no, no! I am not talking about awareness like ‘informational awareness’. I am talking about Awareness as the ground of a deeper layer of sensing. Now, let’s use the mind for this one. Imagine sitting quietly, observing the ebb and flow of your thoughts. Got it? No. Really, close your eyes for a minute, and observe the ebb and flow of thoughts again. Good! Now, notice that you may have noticed that in one moment you feel drawn toward clarity; the next, confusion arises(like why am I doing this? What is this going to do?). In that stillness, you notice how these opposing states emerge from the same space of awareness, each dissolving into the other without resistance. Maybe a little resistance, but it dissolves into it anyway and then another thought arises. What is it they dissolve into? You see, Awareness, like a vast sky, holds both the sunlight and the storm, unchanging and untouched by their coming and going. This expansive awareness is the doorway to transcend duality, and it reveals the seamless wholeness underlying all distinctions.
By cultivating awareness(if this can be cultivated, really), we can observe our tendency to cling to one side of a polarity while rejecting the other. Hence why mindfulness practices train us to witness thoughts and emotions without judgment, exposing the transient and interconnected nature of all experiences. In this state of detached observation, the boundaries between opposites begin to dissolve, and we begin to perceive the underlying unity.
Oh, I should say this right now: transcending duality does not mean rejecting opposites or denying their existence. Instead, it involves integrating them into a broader perspective that honors their interdependence. Just as the yin-yang symbol contains both light and dark in a single circle, life’s polarities form a greater unity. When we step beyond duality, we move from fragmentation to wholeness, from either-or thinking to both-and understanding.
In stepping beyond duality, we discover freedom. The endless struggle to choose one side over the other gives way to a profound sense of peace. We begin to see that the dance of opposites may actually not be a problem that needs any solving. Instead it becomes a rhythm that dances itself! This recognition has the inherent capability to transform our approach to life by allowing us to navigate its complexities with grace and equanimity. In transcending duality, we awaken to the infinite interconnectedness of all things, realizing that the whole has been present all along—waiting to be seen. The whole was God in its Godness and Goodness.
Is it the chicken, or is it the egg? The question itself dissolves as we step back and see the cycle for what it truly is: an infinite loop where neither is first nor last, where both are essential and interdependent. No, the chicken didn’t come first. Neither did the egg. The question was always the answer.
Oh. My. Gosh! No wonder Jesus said, “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last”6.
Oh, what beautiful mystery!
(I need to fry me some eggs).
Okay, I can wait to share this beautiful exercise with you. This exercise if you pay attention, will allow you to see how these dualities dissolve into each other. It’s interesting how this collapse happens and how you can see the events of “life as usual” transform in mysterious liquidity.
Contemplative Prompts
Close your eyes and bring your attention to your breath. Can you observe how the inhale gives rise to the exhale? Are they truly separate, or do they form a single, seamless rhythm? Focus on the rhythm. Notice how the inbreath calls the outbreath like a lover that yearns for his beloved to come back?
Now, let’s play a little with your imagination. Think about a very active ocean with all the waves rising and falling. Perhaps you can hear the beautiful sound of the waves. Now, imagine just its waves. Where does the wave begin, and where does it end? Can the wave exist independently of the ocean? Apply this to yourself: Where do 'you' end and the 'world' begin? Stay there a little longer, darling. Where do ‘you’ end and where does the ‘world’ begin?
Now, let’s examine something a little bit more moralistic. Think of an event you labeled as 'bad' in your life. How did it contribute to something 'good'? Can you see how the two are intertwined and perhaps inseparable?
Now, let’s go a little bit deeper, ask yourself, 'Who is aware of these thoughts and feelings?' Sit with the question without seeking an intellectual answer. Notice the arising of thoughts and feelings. Notice they come and go just like the ocean waves that rise and fall. Notice who it is that’s aware of the thoughts. Notice how the awareness itself is constant, regardless of the content, regardless of the rising and falling. There’s just that constance.
Bonus inquiry: In any moment of conflict, pause and observe. What exists in the space between opposing sides? Is it empty, or is there a stillness holding both sides together? Are you even able to see this space between opposing sides? Look again. Look again. Do you see it?
With these prompts, you may start to find that dualities dissolve into a greater whole, just as the chicken and the egg are not separate entities but are an unbroken whole. This is atruth that was always present, waiting to be noticed.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_or_the_egg
https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/southeast-asia/indonesia-chicken-egg-question-murder-sulawesi-b2588159.html
https://www.huna.org/html/onehand.html
https://www.albany.edu/~rn774/fall96/philos3.html
Matthew 18:18 “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven”
Matthew 20:16