Yet, several writers have argued against this reading of Nāgārjuna. Candrakīrti
suggests that it is as though, in reply to a shopkeepers‘ claim that she has nothing to sell,one replied, "very well, please sell me this nothing" (Huntington and Wangchen 2003,29). The seeds of this critique lie in MMK 24, where we read,
Whatever is dependently co-arisen
That is explained to be emptiness.
That, being a dependent designation,Is itself the middle way.
Something that is not dependently arisen,Such a thing does not exist.
Therefore a nonempty thing Does not exist (MMK 24:18–19; Garfield 1995, 69).
Emptiness then, as this passage explains, is not to be thought of as something that exists independently, for then it would be ―nonempty‖ and a nonempty thing does not exist.
Instead, emptiness is identified with "whatever is dependently co-arisen", in other words,with the ordinary phenomena of everyday experience, things that arise and perish. We are reminded of the Heart Sutra’s famous declaration that "form is emptiness, and emptiness is form", where 'form‘ stands for all of the Five Aggregates.
That is, things as they appear in our ordinary samsaric experience of the world—our physical bodies and other material objects, our perceptions, feelings, and so forth—all these dependently cooriginated things are emptiness, and emptiness is not anything different from them.