The Principal of Emptiness
The principals of both emptiness and no-self are easy to accommodate to modern scientific understandings of how the world and universe work. If you've ever taken a chemistry class, one of the first things you learn is that the vast, vast majority of what constitutes an atom is empty space. The most common analog I have heard is that if you were to place a pea in the center of a football arena, it would be spatially similar to that of an atom; the pea would be like an atomic nucleus, and the outer edges of the arena would be where you could find an electron. So, essentially, there is a whole lot of nothing in an atom. It is, essentially, empty.
Now, think about the fact that all of the matter around us is composed of atoms interacting. All that anything is is the electrons of atoms coinciding with the electrons of other atoms or not. If atoms are primarily emptiness, and everything is comprised of atoms, then we can deduce that everything is primarily emptiness. Although this is hard to tangibly and effectively wrap our minds around most of the time, it is in fact our reality.
This reality of emptiness that has been provided to us by science has been figured by Buddhists for hundreds of years, without anyone even knowing about the existence of atoms and all of their inherent emptiness for most of all of history. I would imagine that most Buddhists in the world today still do not know about atoms, and yet the fundamental truth that everything is empty to them is undisputed. They do not need the evidence (although many Westerners, myself included, find comfort in that evidence.)
In the heart sutra, it is said that "form is emptiness and emptiness is form." To a lot of people at first glance, this seems paradoxical. Form should be the opposite of emptiness, and vice versa. Of course, again, Buddhists have long understood that there is not only no contradiction between form and emptiness, but there is also no duality between them. They are the same thing. From a scientific standpoint, this is true as well. "Form", or maybe "matter", should be what exists instead of emptiness...but when considering that matter is comprised mostly of emptiness, that duality is lost and form and emptiness can exist inseparably.
I guess it might also be interesting to evaluate the claim that "emptiness is form". Although it is perhaps easy to see how form can be emptiness, it is harder to see how emptiness can be form. But then again, atoms are emptiness and they are form. It becomes more interesting still when considering the "vacuum of space". Surely that is emptiness without form...but there is form there too. The laws of physics are a form. Time and space themselves are forms. Even anti-matter is a form. These are all things we can see and measure (even if sometimes it is only through mathematics.) The fact that we can think about gravity waves, black holes, relativity, anti-matter, and "vacuums" means that there is something there for us to grasp...and in that ability for us to grasp it there is form. The fact that we can think about all that happens in that "vacuum" or in that "emptiness" proves that it has form.
If we follow this same line of logic and reasoning, it is also easy to understand how, scientifically, we have no self. Looking at who we each are microcosmically, we are all just clouds of colliding electrons. Even thinking about the atoms that would constitute my body and brain, it's hard to pinpoint when they actually become "me". My body is constantly, unceasingly, trading elements within and without it with its surrounding environment. Oxygen enters my body through my breath, runs in my blood, and then leaves. Carbon enters my body through food, gives me some energy, and then leaves. Even the atoms that comprise my cells are in constant flux--not to mention the cells themselves. Cells are born incessantly and die incessantly. In no way is there anything in my body that is distinctly "mine". Perhaps the sequence of my genomes in my DNA could be "mine", but even those mutate and change throughout all of our lives.
Where am "I" found in all of this? How can the brain that has created this ego logically feel content with its creation after considering even the brain and mind have never been a constant? That is why we should live every moment as the person we are right then, because physically, literally, we have never been the same person up to that moment and we will never be the same person after that moment.
On a macrocosmic level, we can also see that we have no self. As a being, I am so overwhelmingly insignificant and fleeting compared to the grandness that is the universe. The universe itself is insignificant and fleeting when compared to itself. We cannot comprehend with our grasping, cursory minds how completely huge the universe is. Even on our own planet, it is humbling to encounter giant whales, ancient red woods, or everlasting mountains. Considering how small we are, who are we to claim we have some distinction? It would be like a mote of dust claiming it is somehow separate from all that led to it and all it is yet to be.
Which of course leads me into thoughts on interconnectedness. As is perhaps evident by now, I believe that through the understanding that there is no self we can clearly see our interconnectedness. I build my tissues with the same air that somebody else held in their lungs. I continue my life through the consumption of another life, which in turn continued its life through the consumption of another life. One day, all of the elements that fly in and through me will one day no longer attach themselves to any heartbeat or breath or thoughts and will settle into the flow of electrons in bacteria, fungi, ferns, trees, snakes, dogs, babies, oceans, and clouds. We all came from stardust, and to stardust we will all return.
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