David Chapman, a Western Tantric Buddhist (and funny enough, given your other comment below, an atheist and tech-bro-adjacent Buddhist), interprets the notion of emptiness as "nebulousity" — a lack of definition, of being definitely one thing/way or another.
The paradigmatic example he uses is that of clouds: there is no fact of the matter which molecules are part of a particular cloud and which are not, or where one cloud ends and another begins. (The term "nebulousity" was chosen specifically because it's literal meaning is "cloud-like-ness.")
But on the other side, following the Heart Sutra, he says that emptiness is inseparable from form, or in his terminology, pattern: there is no fact where a cloud begins or ends, but nevertheless there is a cloud there and insisting otherwise when you clearly see it is silly.
So, he says, everything is marked by both emptiness and form; or in other words, everything is both nebulous and patterned, because these two things are always present, though sometimes one is much more evident than the other (a rock is pretty far over on the pattern side of the scale, a cloud pretty far over on nebulosity side). One of the things Buddhism is asking you to do apply this notion to your sense of self.
This may or may not be how Asian Buddhists actually think of sunyata and rupa, but when I was looking at Buddhism seriously I found it a lot more helpful than the usual prattle about "the void" and "no self."
no subject
The paradigmatic example he uses is that of clouds: there is no fact of the matter which molecules are part of a particular cloud and which are not, or where one cloud ends and another begins. (The term "nebulousity" was chosen specifically because it's literal meaning is "cloud-like-ness.")
But on the other side, following the Heart Sutra, he says that emptiness is inseparable from form, or in his terminology, pattern: there is no fact where a cloud begins or ends, but nevertheless there is a cloud there and insisting otherwise when you clearly see it is silly.
So, he says, everything is marked by both emptiness and form; or in other words, everything is both nebulous and patterned, because these two things are always present, though sometimes one is much more evident than the other (a rock is pretty far over on the pattern side of the scale, a cloud pretty far over on nebulosity side). One of the things Buddhism is asking you to do apply this notion to your sense of self.
This may or may not be how Asian Buddhists actually think of sunyata and rupa, but when I was looking at Buddhism seriously I found it a lot more helpful than the usual prattle about "the void" and "no self."