Emptiness in mind and in reality

I've asked a question about philosophical reasoning from this phrase. Suffice to say I was wondering if it can be read as an argument for a karmically conditioned rebirth

Its the opposite. When there is no essence of things nor in conditions, there can be no "rebirth".

don't think too much :).

The essence of things does not exist in conditions and so on.

It simply means "there is no self or eternal-self within and behind causes & conditions".

For eg. sometimes when a meditator sees everything with non-existence(wave nature) eye, perception of there is nothing occurs but the seer itself is having a materialistic aspect also, so meditator might develop an essence of eternalism or self as view.

Another simple eg. Considering buddha to be as immortal_existing_being as god; considering dhamma to be immortal_existing_being as child of god.

I presume you equate emptiness with analysis because on analysis things are empty, and non-emptiness with 'empirical' because to our senses things are non-empty. Is that it?

Thus our senses lead us into naive realism, while analysis leads us out again.

The complication would be experience, which some folk classify as 'empirical' and some don't. Thus we could say emptiness is an empirical discovery.

You ask - Can that phrase be read to mean emptiness does not exist in non-emptiness: if and only if an own thing does not exist in non-emptiness then an other thing does not exist in emptiness

Nagarjuna is clear. Nothing really exists. The words after the colon here seem a muddle to me. Emptiness is not a thing that exists.

The discussion is tricky because emptiness may be an ontological term applied to phenomena or meditative states, or in Theravada may be a term for non-self.

In Mahayana it is the idea that all things are empty of intrinsic existence, or it may refer to the emptiness of original awareness. For the former it may be helpful to consider Kant's 'thing-in-itself', and this may be the 'emptiness of analysis' you speak of. By analysis Kant concluded things are empty of inherent existence and consist only of perceived attributes. I see him as providing a bridge between 'Western' and 'Eastern' or 'non-dual' thinking in this respect.

I'm just pondering the issues generally because I still cannot quite understand what's being asked. I wonder if the question is assuming emptiness is a phenomena.

The argument -- for karma -- is that causes have essences in the exact same way as they bring about their effects

The essence of things does not exist in conditions and so on... Since there is no effect, what could [be its] non-conditions or conditions?

One answer -- to the rhetorical question -- is that the essence of things is their conditions and so on. The essence of things do not exist in conditions, fire is not fire because it burns leaves, but are those conditions (what births another thing): fire is fire because it burns -- leaves in the same way as itself.

I don't think that's anti-Buddhist. As long as we're clear that's only conventionally, and ultimately there is no causation and I am not the same thing before and after I am reborn.

That is a highly eccentric use of analytic and empirical, that can only cause confusion. Analytic truth typically means truth by definition, or from definition. Empirical, from observation, or events. Both depend on causes and conditions, and their results lack inherent nature.

"To think ‘it is,’ is eternalism,

To think ‘it is not,’ is nihilism:

Being and non-being,

The wise cling not to either."

-Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 15:10

Emptiness is, of inherent nature. Nagarjuna is refuting metaphysical speculation about identity and essences, using the four corners of the catuskoti. This is pointing at the insufficiency of our intuitions, of our terminology, such as to 'not even be wrong'. Another term for emptiness is inter-being. And a powerful metaphor is Indra's Net.

This article draws comparison between what Nagarjuna is doing & other philosophers, which I think helps clarify how he is 'using words to escape words'. What Dogen drew attention to in the Shobogenzo fascicle 'On the Vines That Entangle: the Vines That Embrace' (available here), as words and thinking not as arguments to create a 'thicket of views', but as a practice: dedicated to awakening.

Subtleties... The concept of emptiness is a mental object that is predicated on other things. We only get to the concept of emptiness by seeing through and negating the fullness (meaningfulness) of other concepts.

The experience of emptiness in not predicated on the concept of it. To experience emptiness is to see that 'emptiness' is no more real than 'fullness'.

If one holds the concept of a thing-in-its-own-right (an 'own thing'), one must hold the concept of its negation (that which is 'not-such'). If one holds the concept of a negation, one must hold a concept of that which has been negated (a thing-in-its-own-right). So what lies beneath those concepts?