In Chan Buddhism, emptiness (śūnyatā) is understood as the absence of any fixed, independent essence in all phenomena, including the mind and the sense of self. Things arise in dependence on causes and conditions, and for that reason they are fluid processes rather than solid entities. This insight is closely related to the teaching that “form is emptiness, emptiness is form,” where emptiness is not a separate realm but the very nature of the concrete world as it appears. Emptiness is thus not a doctrine of annihilation, but a way of seeing that loosens the grip of reification and reveals reality as interdependent and impermanent. When this is understood, the world is seen as it is, without the overlay of rigid concepts and dualistic divisions.

Chan places great stress on the direct realization of emptiness through meditation and contemplative inquiry, rather than through abstract speculation. Emptiness is to be experienced non-conceptually, as a shift in how mind and world are lived, not merely as an idea. In this tradition, recognizing the empty nature of thoughts, emotions, and self-images is inseparable from “seeing one’s true nature,” which is described as originally pure and free from conceptual elaboration. This is often framed as a sudden, complete awakening, rather than a purely gradual, analytical process, though practice and preparation remain indispensable. Because emptiness is the nature of both subject and object, the realization of it dissolves the hard boundary between self and others, nirvāṇa and saṃsāra, sacred and ordinary.

At the same time, Chan teachers consistently warn against turning emptiness into a new object of attachment or a nihilistic stance. Clinging to a concept of emptiness is treated as just another conceptual prison, sometimes likened to “dead ashes.” Genuine realization does not negate the vividness of experience; rather, it allows things to appear in their “suchness,” just as they are, free of the compulsion to grasp or reject. In this light, everyday activities—walking, eating, working—are not distractions from emptiness but expressions of it when enacted without clinging or self-centered calculation.

From this perspective, the insight into emptiness naturally flowers as wisdom and compassion. Seeing that there is no fixed, separate self softens rigid self-interest and opens a responsive, unobstructed mind. Others’ suffering is no longer felt as entirely apart, and this shared ground gives rise to a compassionate impulse that is not forced but spontaneous. Thus, for Chan, emptiness is both the fundamental nature of reality and the living heart of the path: a direct, transformative way of seeing that reshapes how life is understood and how beings are met.