There is a “void-emptiness”: the emptiness of beings and phenomena that are svabhāva-śūnyatā, meaning empty of their own nature — they do not exist by themselves, and are ultimately illusory and impermanent.
This emptiness is not nihilistic: it simply indicates that
« all phenomena are only conceptual constructions and lack their own nature »
(“tous les phénomènes ne sont que des conceptualisations et sont dénués de nature propre”).
When speaking of Ultimate Reality as Emptiness, the meaning is different.
It is empty of all materiality and of all possible mental representation;
it is a “Full-Emptiness”, full of supreme Being and beyond every determination.
More precisely
The Sanskrit term śūnyatā (शून्यता), usually translated “emptiness,” does not express absolute negation but the absence of own-nature:
no thing, no phenomenon has independent existence or autonomous essence (svabhāva).
Everything is relational, conditioned, inter-dependent:
pratītya-samutpāda — “dependent co-arising.”
This emptiness first serves as a method of inner purification:
it dissolves mental attachment to objects falsely taken as self-subsistent.
It is therefore liberating, opening toward Awakening (bodhi).
Ultimate Emptiness is not a void, but the beyond of all determinations — the Unconditioned (asaṃskṛta),
identified with Buddha-nature (tathāgatagarbha) in certain schools.
Hence the expression “Emptiness-Fullness”:
empty of “thingness,” yet filled with supreme Reality, source of all manifestation.
Two levels should thus be distinguished:
- Emptiness of phenomena — absence of own-nature (svabhāva).
- Emptiness of the Absolute — absence of determination, yet principial fullness.
Further reading
- Nāgārjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā — foundational exposition of emptiness.
- Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras — transcendental wisdom.
- Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra — emptiness and Buddha-nature.
- Asaṅga, Abhidharma-samuccaya — phenomena and non-substantiality.
- Vasubandhu, Trisvabhāva-nirdeśa — three natures and emptiness.
- Fazang (Huayan), Essay on the Golden Lion — interdependence and fullness.
- D.T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism — emptiness and experience.