When we talk about dependent arising, emptiness and the two truths we are really talking about the same thing. All are just devices to rid people of attachment. (Cheng 1991:39) We label them differently for convenience of discussion, but they are one and the same. Therefore, one cannot place one higher than another or assert one to the exclusion of another. (Winters, 1994:131) Furthermore, the relationship between pratityasamutpada and emptiness is empty and therefore the relationship does not have any intrinsic, inherent essence. Emptiness itself is dependent — dependent on conventional reality, dependent on pratityasamutpada. It is emptiness which allows dependent arising and which allows change and which allows ignorance to be eradicated. Hence,understanding conventional reality to be something other than what it is, is false understanding: nirvana and ‘this very place’ are one and the same.
The implications of Nagarjuna’s teachings are wide-ranging, startling and, at first reading, contradictory, even incomprehensible. For example, if all things are empty, does this mean that emptiness and dependent arising is the Ultimate Truth, in the sense that emptiness is the ‘essence’ of all things? Not at all. Nagarjuna said that ‘everything’ is empty. Therefore, emptiness itself must be empty or else emptiness would be the ‘essence’ of everything and Nagarjuna asserted that there is no ‘essence’ to anything, even emptiness itself. Madhyamika Buddhism refutes all ‘truths’ as being but provisional: “One should be empty of all truths and lean on nothing.” (Cheng, 1991:46) Emptiness, pratityasamutpada, the Four Noble Truths, all of the Tathagata’s teachings are just upaya; none should be asserted as ‘the truth’. As Nagarjuna said, “Empty, non-empty, both, or neither —these should not be declared [as they] are expressed only for the purpose of communication.” (quoted in Winters, 1994:133)
So, what does the emptiness of emptiness mean? Where does it lead us? It leads us back to ‘conventional’ reality. If ultimate reality is itself empty, ultimate reality can be nothing more than conventional reality. The two are identical. The Vimalakirtinirdesa Sutra says: “To say this is conventional and this is ultimate is dualistic. To realise that there is no difference between the conventional and the ultimate is to enter the Dharma-door of nonduality.” (quoted in Garfield and Priest, 2003) The Heart Sutra, the heart of Zen Buddhism, says the same thing: “Form is emptiness; emptiness is form; form is no different from emptiness; emptiness is no different from form.” This links the ‘two truths’ together; conventional reality and ultimate reality are not different; rather,
they are two views of the same thing. Without the emptiness of emptiness, Nagarjuna would be preaching some kind of self-evident ultimate truth and he clearly is not doing that. As he said, “
no truth has been taught by a Buddha for anyone, anywhere.” However, it is important to point out that nothing Nagarjuna teaches
denies the conditional, ordinary world; it is just our clinging to it as an absolute that causes the problem. (MacFarlane, 1995; Cheng, 1991:42; Abe, 1997:99; Schroeder, 2000) Understanding and living in this realization is what.
http://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/Nagarjuna/zenteachingsofnagarjuna.pdfnot distinct