October 09, 2026

The Function Of Souls

All life is bound together by mutual support and interdependence.

Umasvati compiled the Tattvartha Sutra sometime between the second and fifth century CE, distilling centuries of Jain teaching into the one text every major Jain sect still accepts as authoritative. This verse, numbered 5.21, states the quiet law beneath Jain cosmology: souls exist by helping one another, breath by breath, meal by meal, life by life. In the Eastern traditions this is interbeing, the recognition that no self stands apart from the web of beings and elements that sustain it, a truth Buddhists call dependent origination and Jains call parasparopagraha. Practitioners return to this daily through ahimsa, treating every creature's welfare as bound to their own, since harming one thread frays the whole web. Seen clearly, ordinary gratitude becomes a spiritual practice: the rice you ate, the air you breathe, arrived through countless other lives.

A principle of Eastern Wisdom: Interbeing →