Jenn asked:

I am taking Buddhist Philosophy, only including classical Indian Buddhism. I am trying to write a
paper on Nagarjuna's doctrine of emptiness, specifically that emptiness itself is empty. I haven't
figured out an argument that is small enough to encapsulate within 10 pages, but I think I was going
to argue something having to do with the difference between sunya and sunyata — or perhaps that
nirvana is really non-existence because it is in an "empty" realm...?

I'd like to define emptiness (the fact that is does not denote lack of function), then I'd like to define
how "emptiness" is empty...but that's where I find myself unsure of where to go...do you have any
thoughts, suggestions, or book references?

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I don't know whether you are going to find my reply helpful in your work (in fact I rather doubt it) but
others may find it helpful in theirs):

What I would like to comment on is your desire to "define how 'emptiness' is empty." You say that you
are "unsure" how to do such a thing, and I think your instinct here is good because I don't think there
is a way to do it.

Why not? Well, because "emptiness" is not the name of anything which could be empty, since it is not
the name of anything at all. We say of a drawer or of a room that it is empty. By saying that we are
not, I think, asserting that there is "really" something in it, but invisible to us which is called "empty."
Rather, we are denyingsomething. What we are denying is that anything is in the drawer or the room.
So, by trying to "define" how "emptiness" is empty, you are assuming that "emptiness" is like a drawer
or room that has something in it. That very assumption is wrong. Emptiness is not a "something" and
so "emptiness" cannot itself be empty. Therefore it is impossible (or worse) to show that "emptiness is
empty."

Kenneth Stern