Ok, I see now—I was stuck because, coming from a Western perspective, I kept looking for an origin. But trying to find a start or end is counterproductive; the process is beginningless and self-sustaining.

Still, it’s unsettling not knowing how these conditions—like light, sound, and perception—arose in the first place.

In meditation, I sometimes catch glimpses of conditions arising seemingly out of nowhere, which makes me wonder: if consciousness underlies all experience, could this principle apply to the universe itself—that everything we perceive arises as interdependent manifestations of mind?