Madhyamaka stands out within Buddhist thought through the radical thoroughness with which it understands emptiness (śūnyatā). Where many Abhidharma schools hold that, although the person is without self, the basic constituents of experience (dharmas) possess their own inherent nature (svabhāva), Madhyamaka denies such inherent existence even at this most fundamental level. No phenomenon is granted an independent essence: not physical objects, not mental events, not causes and results, and not even nirvāṇa or emptiness itself. This uncompromising non-substantialism marks a decisive contrast with systems that still preserve some ultimately real foundation, whether in dharmas, in consciousness, or in a subtle absolute.

A distinctive feature of Madhyamaka is its articulation of the two truths—conventional and ultimate—not as two separate layers of reality, but as two ways of apprehending the same dependently arisen world. Conventional truth refers to how things appear and function in ordinary experience; ultimate truth is simply the recognition that these very things lack inherent nature. There is no hidden realm behind appearances that is more real; rather, the ultimate is the way the conventional is when seen without reification. In this sense, dependent origination, emptiness, and the everyday functioning of phenomena are understood as inseparable: things arise and operate precisely because they are empty of any fixed essence.

Madhyamaka also differs in its method. Instead of putting forward positive metaphysical theses, it primarily employs a dialectical strategy, often in the form of reductio arguments, to reveal the contradictions that follow from any attempt to posit inherently existing entities—whether material, mental, or absolute. Other Buddhist schools are more inclined to affirm some positive doctrine, such as the ultimate reality of dharmas, the primacy of consciousness, or a truly real suchness or Buddha-nature. Madhyamaka, by contrast, uses reasoning to dismantle all such views, without replacing them with a new ontological ground.

This gives a particular flavor to its understanding of the “middle way.” Rather than focusing only on a middle path between indulgence and asceticism in practice, Madhyamaka applies the middle to the very status of phenomena: avoiding both eternalism, which asserts truly existing essences, and nihilism, which would deny the efficacy of the conventional world. Things are said to exist only dependently—on causes, conditions, parts, and conceptual imputation—and this dependent origination is not something added on top of emptiness but is identical with it. In this way, ethical responsibility, causal efficacy, and spiritual practice remain fully meaningful, precisely because they unfold within a world that is empty of inherent nature.