How does dependent arising support the Mahayana teaching of emptiness?

In Mahayana Buddhism, the teaching of emptiness (shunyata) is fundamentally supported by the doctrine of dependent origination (pratitya-samutpada). While early Buddhist schools used dependent origination to explain the causal chain of suffering and rebirth, Mahayana thinkers—most notably Nagarjuna—extended this concept to argue that all phenomena lack intrinsic existence (svabhava).123

Dependent origination posits that nothing arises independently; rather, every entity exists only in reliance upon causes and conditions. Because things are produced through this network of relations, they possess no autonomous, permanent, or "self-nature". Emptiness, therefore, is not a state of nihilistic nonexistence, but rather the realization that all things are empty of the independent essence falsely ascribed to them.123

By defining emptiness through dependent origination, Mahayana philosophy avoids the extremes of permanence and annihilation. It establishes that while all phenomena are ultimately empty of intrinsic nature, they continue to exist conventionally as a web of interdependent relations. This understanding is central to the bodhisattva path, as it reveals the lack of a distinct "self," fostering compassion by dissolving the perceived barrier between oneself and others.231