Sometime ago I posted an entry Comparing Sunyata and Brahmin I attempted to reconcile these views in a synthesis, I no longer regard this perspective as valid and my reasoning as to why follows:

Brahman is inherent existence; śūnyatā is the absence of such inherence. Emptiness is therefore not an “essence of form” in the way Advaita positions Brahman.

A tree’s emergence is entirely reliant on the conditions that allow it to arise; soil, water, light, air, time. Each of those, in turn, depends on other conditions. This pattern holds universally: all phenomena rely on conditions, and those conditions themselves are interdependent. From this, form gives rise to new conditions, and those conditions in turn lead to new forms. It is cyclical.

If consciousness itself were an essence, its persistence would prove that essence is required for continued existence; yet the tree refutes that claim. No “tree-essence” inhabits the seed. A seed becomes a tree only when a matrix of conditions (soil, water, sunlight, nutrients) converges; each condition is itself the outcome of prior causes; water from clouds; nutrients from decomposed matter; the seed from another tree; none possesses intrinsic essence.

Calling śakti the inner essence of māyā merely relocates the problem; it replaces one occult substrate (Brahman) with another (śakti). By contrast, saying that all self-nature is śūnyatā shows that no animating essence is needed; apparent selfhood is a convention of perspective and speech; ultimately it has no independent reality. The “self” exists only as an interdependent web of conditions (food eaten; thoughts entertained; assumptions held; places visited; choices made); outside that nexus there is no soul to reincarnate. As you arose from causes and conditions, so you dissolve back into them; emptiness precedes and follows your appearance.

Advaita describes Brahman as the invisible whole that makes all things visible, a consciousness-substrate of everything; but claiming that consciousness is the baseline of reality pushes explanation into unfalsifiable territory. How would one prove anything exists outside consciousness? If the embodied person dies and the world remains; what “essence” persists? Buddhism answers: none; no personal self is reborn.

In short, Advaita explains the world by positing a hidden, self-existent ground; whereas Madhyamaka explains the same phenomena by showing that no ground is needed. The practical upshot is radical; if no essence underwrites “me”, every form of clinging; whether to identity, opinion, or outcome; rests on a phantom. Test this directly; when attention drops its demand for something permanent to grasp, what remains is a vivid flux that functions perfectly without a metaphysical safety net. Do not take Nāgārjuna’s word; or mine; for it. Inspect any sensation, thought, or object for a self-existent core; its perpetual absence is the most reliable datum in experience; and recognizing that absence is precisely what liberates. The only “essence” demonstrably present is the ever-receding absence of essence itself; seeing that absence is freedom; and living from it is the real experiment.