Existence and non-existence are extremes, Purity and impurity are extremes as well, Thus, having relinquished both extremes, The wise do not dwell even in the middle.
Emptiness-view is also known as the Middle Way. The two extremes that one must steer are eternalism and nihilism. Eternalism is the view of eternal self and forms. Nihilism/annihilationism is the view that the self is destroyed with death and our actions have no ethical consequences.
Emptiness refers to the absence of essence or inherent existence in all objects. Objects arise dependent on other conditions, therefore they cannot be said to have causal independence. Two levels of truth can be discerned: the conventional truth of everyday commonsense reality, and the ultimate truth of emptiness. That all objects are ultimately empty does not mean that we do not experience conventional reality. Emptiness is not a transcedental existence like the Brahman in Hinduism, it is not to be reified, as it is empty itself.
To posit emptiness is not a position, because it is simply a phenomenological correction to a mistaken position. What others posit, it has been searched for, and nothing has been found. It is a conventional pedagogic means to the total dissolution of conceptualizing thought. It is like summoning a sword while dreaming a nightmare to fight with a beast: neither the sword nor the nightmare beast is real, but the sword ends the nightmare. To take up any position at all is to be afflicted. The Middle Way does not just replace other philosophical theories, but completely silences all reasoning.
To understand the Middle Way is not the final achievement: an optical illusion can be understood to be simply an error of our optical faculties, but the error is still being seen after the understanding. The goal is to halt the illusory perception of causally independent essence, not to merely understand it as an illusion.
First, one puts an end to what is not meritorious. In the middle, one puts an end to identity. Later, one puts an end to all views. Those who understand this are skilled.