Emptiness is a concept, not a thing

Here is a loose translation of Master ChingChe's teaching on emptiness.

The Buddhist concept of emptiness isn't a thing or form you can imagine. If you try to think of emptiness as something with form, you've missed the point. The great master, Ven Zhi Zhe explained that emptiness is a concept, it means nothing has a fixed, permanent nature. You might be rich now, but that could change. You might look good now, but that won't last forever. Everything depends on causes and conditions, which are always changing. That's what emptiness means - everything lacks an unchanging, independent existence. All forms are just temporary manifestations of causes and conditions. Nothing can determine its own permanent nature.

Emptiness refers to phenomena arising from causes and conditions, having no intrinsic nature, and being inherently empty. "Having no intrinsic nature" means that things cannot determine their own nature. All appearances are borrowed from causes and conditions.