Tathāgatagarbha and emptiness (śūnyatā) can be understood as two complementary ways of speaking about the same ultimate reality. Emptiness, especially as articulated in Madhyamaka, emphasizes that all phenomena lack inherent, independent existence and arise only in dependence on causes and conditions. Within this framework, Buddha‑nature is also empty in that it is not a self, not a metaphysical substance, and not some permanent, independent entity hidden inside beings. Key Buddha‑nature texts explicitly identify tathāgatagarbha with suchness and emptiness, indicating that it is not meant to stand apart from the basic insight of non‑self and lack of intrinsic nature.

At the same time, Tathāgatagarbha teachings give a more affirmative, “positive” expression to what emptiness implies. Whereas emptiness is often described in negative terms—absence of own‑being, absence of self—Buddha‑nature scriptures speak of a luminous, pure, even “permanent” and “blissful” reality. This is not to reintroduce a substantial self, but to highlight the mind’s potential and the qualities that manifest when emptiness is realized. In this light, Buddha‑nature is said to be empty of adventitious defilements yet not empty of unsurpassed qualities such as wisdom and compassion, which are inseparable from the realization of emptiness itself.

Different interpretive traditions have drawn out this relationship in distinct ways. Some understand tathāgatagarbha simply as another name for emptiness: the very fact that mind is empty of fixed, defiled nature is what makes awakening possible. Others emphasize the “other‑emptiness” perspective, according to which Buddha‑nature is empty of what it is not—defilements and conditioned characteristics—yet not empty of its own enlightened nature. Still others treat Buddha‑nature as a powerful, provisional teaching that inspires confidence and counters nihilistic misunderstandings of emptiness, while regarding emptiness itself as the more strictly analytical expression of ultimate truth.

In practice, these two themes function together rather than in isolation. Insight into emptiness undermines clinging to a fixed self and to the seeming solidity of defilements, thereby revealing the mind’s naturally luminous, Buddha‑nature aspect. Conversely, trust in Buddha‑nature supports the contemplative journey by affirming that, because all phenomena are empty and not fixed in their present form, the obscurations that veil this nature can be removed. Emptiness and Tathāgatagarbha thus form a dynamic pair: one clears away mistaken grasping, the other discloses the depth of what remains when such grasping falls away.