Mahayana bodhisattvas first tried to elucidate the principle of emptiness and then incorporated it in sutras, the first of which was the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. Beyond that, they tried to express emptiness positively, as an empty place where the unifying truth (the Wonderful Dharma of One Vehicle) can be seen, in other words, in the Lotus Sutra.

The establishment of this unifying truth also teaches us to see the world and life not from a narrow, partial, or temporally limited perspective but with a holistic, eternal vision. This truth can save modern people from being increasingly maddened and captivated by the fragmentation of whole systems. In a word, it creates an image of a holistic cosmos, an integrating and unifying view of the world and of life. … [T]his is the reason for the emergence of people who had acquired this kind of view of the world and human life: they had been touched by the unifying truth and integrating cosmic reality (the reality of all things) revealed in the heart of chapter 2. The Tiantai theory of “three thousand worlds in one moment of experience” was the harbinger of this way of thinking.