"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form." (Buddhism, Heart Sutra)
"Ano raniyan, mahato mahiyan. One atom of the smallest is vaster than the greatest." (Upanshads)
I need look no further than physics to confirm the Buddha's words. Vast empty space permeates my body. Compared to the scintillating substance of their atoms, bodies are nearly all void, empty. As the opening verse of the Bible describes it, "In the beginning place, where God is creating the universe, the earth is a formless void."
The so-called "particles" in an atom have no real substance. They are little balls of "matter," for matter does not exist. Each supposed "particle of matter" is an all-pervading field of radiance, at the center of which a fleeting wave of pure mathematical intelligence flares. "Particles" are glittering equations written in the vacuum. Have you ever written your name with your finger in the air? Did it have any substance? Was it really "there"?
Particles of matter appear and dissolve instantaneously as unbalanced mathematical equations, teetering on the graceful edge of chaos. And this imbalance of equations, this loss of mathematical symmetry, is the dance of creation. I cherish the random sub-nuclear frolic of imperfection: for if these wave-equations ever solved themselves, the universe would vanish into the stillness of perfect symmetry.
Blessed be the creativity of chaos.
How spacious is my body? I make room for several galaxies in a molecule of my fingertip. Each nerve is a tunnel of stars. My flesh is filled with clear skies. And in the heart of every atom is a vast luminous trembling silence, an asymmetrical vacuum ever whispering, "Be light, weave yourself from sourceless beams, and dance!"
