Extracted from
here: http://www.snibbe.com/scott/savers/index.html
Emptiness is Form refers to a Buddhist text called the Heart Sutra,
which is the distillation of all teachings on Emptiness. Emptiness
in Buddhism refers not to nothingness, but to the inherent lack of
independent existence of all phenomena - both mental and physical.
In the case of physical phenomena, the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat
Hanh explains, "You are only made of non-you elements". That is,
your body is composed entirely of non-body elements - dirt, plants,
decomposed bodies, stardust, etc. Thinking about the human body in
this way one may come to understand that independent existence is a
mental construction, unverified by physical interrogation.
In a similar way, one can explore the boundaries between physical
objects. For example, the specific line between your body and the
rest of the world is unidentifiable and indefinable. Your body
dissolves into the world around it, both losing microscopic
particles and absorbing particles of the "outside world" through
your skin, orifices and senses. Furthermore, as many philosophers
and scientists note, if you remove parts of your body, you do not
become any less "you" - e.g. when you get a haircut, or, much
worse, lose a limb. Finally, your mind is composed of thoughts,
ideas and perceptions which are understood through the language you
learned, the culture you were raised in and the people you
encountered. Thus, the notion that any part of you, or "you"
itself, exists independent of the world, even your thoughts, is
purely a mental construction.
