You are what you eat

How true is that statement? Maybe from a scientific, nutritional angle, it is true.

But from a wider spiritual angle, it is even more true!

I have been reading and learning about dependent origination. [it's sort of linked with the lack of inherent existence]

Think about it. Every mouthful of rice that you eat. How did it come about? It did not miraculously appear in front of you, cooked and ready to be digested.

There were so much, so many involved. Starting from the kitchen helper who cooked the rice, the counter lady who sold the meal, the delivery man who sent the rice, the rice factory staff, the farmers, the cows/horse/donkey who pulled the plough, the sun, the rain, the worms, the soil, even the many generations before of the people involved. Without their great great great...grandparents, the farmer would not be there to farm, to harvest the rice, etc.

If you can view everything in this manner, you would understand that you are not you. You did not make you. You are dependent on numerous (even millions) others who gave/provided you what you have, or wanted. It is not only you. Without those who fed your parents (another big cycle of the many many involved), where would you be?

From another perspective, we are nothing in this big universe, and so dependent on everything and everyone. Yet we think that we are different.

Yet we think that we are special. How faulty is that logic?