The phrase “form is emptiness, emptiness is form” expresses the Mahayana insight that what appears and what is ultimately real are not two separate domains, but two ways of seeing the same dependent process. “Form” here stands for all conditioned phenomena—body and mind, objects and experiences, all that arises in perception and thought. To say that “form is emptiness” is to say that these phenomena lack any fixed, independent, self-existing essence; they arise only through causes, conditions, and conceptual imputation. This vision undercuts the instinct to treat things, including the self, as solid and self-contained, and thereby loosens the grip of attachment and aversion. The world of form is thus revealed as fluid, contingent, and relational rather than absolute.

The second half, “emptiness is form,” guards against the misunderstanding that emptiness is a kind of blank nothingness. Emptiness is not a separate, hidden reality behind appearances; it is precisely the way phenomena exist as dependently arisen. Because things are empty of inherent existence, they can appear, function, change, and serve as the field of meaningful relationships and ethical action. Emptiness always shows itself as concrete forms—sensations, thoughts, events—so there is no emptiness apart from the world that is actually lived and experienced. This insight avoids both the extreme of eternalism, which reifies things as ultimately real in themselves, and the extreme of nihilism, which denies the reality and significance of experience altogether.

Seen in this light, the statement articulates the non-dual wisdom at the heart of the Mahayana path. Conventional truth recognizes that forms operate, causality works, and the world of relationships and responsibilities cannot be dismissed. Ultimate truth recognizes that all of this is empty of any independent, unchanging core. Mahayana wisdom lies in seeing that these are not two competing realities, but two complementary perspectives on the same dynamic, interdependent world. From this understanding, engagement with life can be wholehearted yet unbound, allowing compassion and skillful means to unfold within the very play of form that is, in its deepest nature, emptiness.