Emptiness does not mean non-existence: it means empty of separate, permanent self. Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche prefers the term “completeness” because, he says:

When we experience it we feel complete, and realise that the sense of self in fact, causes a limitation of what we are actually able to experience.1

Other Buddhists have emphasised that we must understand emptiness and dependent arising together. We are empty of separate self, because we are full of the whole universe. A rose is not a rose: a rose is full of non-rose elements.Therefore, through meditation, we find a path away from egocentric enslavement, towards freedom and compassion.

Analysis

The second approach to freedom from the egocentric view of reality is through philosophical analysis of the theory of emptiness. This is based on the recognition that there is a fundamental difference between the way we see the world and the way it is. Our perception is that we are individuals, separate from the elements of the world that surrounds us; we are independent, each with distinct characteristics and a central core. Inevitably, this sense of self gives rise to the formation of attachments, prejudices and habits such as clinging and “possessiveness”.

Through reasoning and analysis we can free ourselves from this `relative` reality and achieve `emptiness`: a total absence of self which no longer limits our possible experience and gives us the compassion to work for the benefit of other beings.

1 Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche: Mind beyond Death

Such a mind of desire, hatred, hope and fear, something to be accepted, and something to be rejected – all of these different aspects of thoughts, concepts and clinging will naturally be overcome through analysis and the view of shunyata, or `emptiness`(non solid existence).

Through the wisdom of understanding, the wisdom of experience and the wisdom and realization of shunyata, one can totally transcend all the inherent stress involved with the eight worldly dharmas of gain and loss; fame and insignificance; praise and criticism, slander or contempt, joy and sadness.1

Not surprisingly, the main correspondences between Buddhism and science have been found in this area, probably because both are asking the same question – “What is the true nature of reality?”

The Philosophical Traditions

Out of these teachings, four major analytical philosophical schools emerged, one of them called Madhyamaka.They hold that objects are made up of very small, truly existing, invisible particles.

This same view was the beginning of the formulation of the Atomic Theory, in which it was maintained that all chemical substances are composed of particles that are invisible elementary constituents called atoms. Atoms were believed to be the smallest irreducible particles of a chemical substance, and for roughly 100 years students assumed that the atom could not be split.

Scientists were catching up with Buddhist atomic philosophers, but they hadn’t quite reached the speculative Buddhist theories recorded in the 4th century CE where we find a discussion of the physical size of different atoms.Madhyamaka, Sub-atomic Theory and Quantum Physics

Madhyamaka reasoning took a further step and sought to establish that the mind is empty:

We search for the mind, and we are unable to find it……because it has no real nature, no true existence… Madhyamaka reasoning is in harmony with the teachings of emptiness, (shunyata) expounded in the Heart Sutra, where we learn that no phenomena, either matter or mind, possess permanent, immutable or intrinsic nature.

Although atoms were thought to be the smallest building blocks of matter up until the late 19th century CE, the Rutherford experiment of 1909 indicated that atoms were made up of a small nucleus (later found to be made of neutrons and protons) surrounded by a cloud of electrons. Later experiments discovered many new particles, which were created when neutrons and protons collided; and in 1963 it was postulated that these particles could be made of even smaller particles called quarks. This idea was substantiated when quark-anti-quark pairs were produced. The quarks and leptons and gauge bosons that are responsible for the forces between these particles are what are now called “elementary particles”.