Within the Sanlun tradition of Chinese Madhyamaka, the vision of existence is articulated through three interrelated marks: emptiness, conventional existence, and the Middle. Emptiness (空, kōng) indicates that all phenomena lack any inherent, independent self‑nature; nothing possesses a fixed, self‑sufficient essence. This is not a mere negation, but a way of revealing that what is taken as solid and self‑standing is, upon analysis, devoid of such grounding. Emptiness thus undercuts both substantialist views and the tendency to cling to things as ultimately real.

Alongside this, the Sanlun school speaks of conventional existence or provisional designation (假, jiǎ). Phenomena do appear and function, yet they do so only dependently, arising through causes, conditions, and conceptual imputation. Their existence is not denied, but is understood as contingent and relational rather than absolute. This mark guards against mistaking emptiness for a doctrine of sheer nonexistence, by affirming the everyday, workable world as conventionally valid while still empty of self‑nature.

The third mark, the Middle (中, zhōng), represents the insight that holds emptiness and conventional existence together without falling into extremes. It is neither nihilism, which would deny all reality, nor eternalism, which would posit fixed, enduring essences. The Middle is the standpoint from which emptiness and conventional existence are seen as mutually implicative: because things are empty, they can arise dependently; because they arise dependently, they are empty. In this way, the three marks form a single contemplative vision, guiding practice toward a freedom that neither clings to being nor to non‑being.