Day 60 of 365: Seven Analyses

A classical analytic approach in Madhyamaka is the seven analyses, which are traditionally introduced by analyzing a cart.  It seems to also work quite well on a car, since those are more common these days than carts.  We begin with the first analysis: There is no essential reality in a thing as a whole.  In other words, we cannot find an essential reality anywhere in the whole.  When we look at a car, we immediately think there is an essential reality to it, which must surely be somewhere in the car.  By looking at the car, we see that it is comprised of parts and sub-parts, and this process does not stop.  Eventually, we see that there really is nothing we can point to specifically and say it is the car.  So, the car does not seem to be anywhere in the parts.  In the same way, is our being anywhere in the parts of our body?