I thought said you also eat non-soy bars and if so, what are they?
I thought Buddhists did chant? But I think I got that from that Tina Turner movie.
Can you please explain more about how we don't exist as independent selves?
No. The protein bars I eat have soy in them. The whey shake I drink doesn't.
"Self" is an illusion. The term Anatta has a mening more to the issue that there is no such thing as the classical idea of the "I". This implies and means what one thinks "I" to be, what we think of as "I" is just an illusion in our own minds. Thoughts are computed by your mind before you know of them. A thought, once it enters the brain, is computed in the brain before I am conscious that it is there. A few microseconds before-hand. What does this mean? This means that my own thoughts are not my own doing, but are spontaneous. But they aren't really spontaneous because nothing is spontaneous, all things have a cause and thus my thoughts have a cause. What cause? Causes that preexist me, you, my environment, the world.
There is not any real or clear difference between what "I" am and what is seen as "out there" or "beyond the body" out in the world. One is costantly losing matter and gaining matter and energy and also exchanging mass and energy with the environment and the universe. There is no clear and obvioius line dividing what "I" am and what my environment is. If I touch a piece of wood there is no clear dividing line between the wood and your hand. Not only does the wood attach to your hand, but the skin cells attach to the wood making it one object. The forces holding the atoms all together in your hand are now interacting with the all of the atoms of the wood. It is a single object for all intents and purposes. The idea of inter connectedness is important and relevant in Buddhism because it aids in stopping hate and promotes love because we are connected with everything and we are part of it all, as it is part of us, it becomes impossible to 'hate' anything.
Also, all that we are and all that we do is a DIRECT result of what has happened before we ever existed. We are our environments and our environments are us. You are the universe and the universe is in you. There isn't any separation, and any separations made are pure illusions. My and your thoughts, feelings, actions, etc. are all directly or indirectly influenced by the universe and the universe is influenced by us, resulting in one "thing". The universe is aware because we are aware and we are part of the universe. We, we the intelligent life, could consider ourselves the 'brain' of the universe. Now, The law of dependent origination is a clear example of the vast connectedness of the cosmos according to Buddhism. The laws of cause and effect are important in Buddhism, as our suffering has a cause and the effect is what we feel every day. All things have a cause.
"No self" means
no permanent self in the real sense that we are always changing biologically and physically, not just our bodies but also our consciousness. We change moment to moment, and we are not the same people we were years ago. We think differently and see things differently, but the basic molecules are also all different. Our cells today are not the cells we had 10 years ago, nor are the bone cells or the neurons. So the brain we have today is not the same brain, not the same 'matter' that it was 10 years ago. We are different people and the continuity of our consciousness is our illusion.
The cosmos can be seen as a "NET" in Buddhism. A net is made up of a series of ties, so everything in this cosmos is connected by a series of ties.
Does free will exist? It is Free Will still. Certainly our free will is predetermined due to causality, but it is still our own free will. We make our own choices, we choose our own choices...That does not imply that what we want to choose or decide to choose isn't predetermined. It IS "our choice" but "our choice" is also predetermined. Predetermination doesn't negate the fact that we still choose our own actions, it simply makes clear that what we do finally decide to choose is already predetermined. For humans to have "free will", it is not necessary that people make decisions in some vacuum uninfluenced by the laws of causality.