The article deals with the relationship between the concepts of ‘emptiness’ and ‘Buddhа nature’ as exposed in the Mahayanist Nirvāṇa-sūtra. On the basis of citations from the original text it is shown that according to the teaching of Nirvāṇa-sūtra to follow the middle way leading to nirvāṇa it is necessary to understand not only the ‘emptiness’ of illusions (śūnyatā), but also the ‘emptiness’ of the true reality — which is the emptinessākāśa or the ‘emptiness of first meaning’, ‘ultimate emptiness, being the only possible way of existence of the true reality or, in other words, of the Buddha nature.
