Please explain Emptiness

[Hulk Hoagie]

I have a very close friend who I believe is seriously misinterpreting the Heart Sutra. I am very wary of getting too involved in dogmatic debates but I do think it is important to be clear on what the Buddha taught. He is very convinced that Buddhist teachings on emptiness amount to, 'there is no existence at all, this is all fake and an illusion. the sooner you reach nirvana the sooner we can all cease to exist in a truly nihilistic sense' are there really some buddhist schools of thought that teach this? i don't mean to be rude but such a line of thought just seems like garbage.

I have always interpreted and been taught to interpret buddhist emptiness as a teaching that everything changes constantly and is interdependent on everything else and therefore does not exist inherently. am i missing something? any scripture references that would be useful?

thanks

[Matthew]

One of the extremes the Buddha taught against was your friend's nihilism. However - yes there are schools that teach this.



"Emptiness is form and form is emptiness"

Everything is empty of a permanent self-existing existence. Everything arises together and the entire universe is interdependent. Everything is subject to constant change. There is nothing that is not constantly changing.

And we are empty of a "soul" - we don't have one "Anatman" no-soul. We fill the gap with the false sense of self called ego, clinging to this and that so we don't experience the emptiness of "I, me and mine" directly.

Human nature abhors a vacuum until it finds one, which it then realises is home.

[Flipasso]

Most mind-blowing video ever!!

Beware that the nuclei of the atom isn't known to be not empty.