We are empty of any isolated essence, of any nonconnected essence.We are free of such nonconnected, isolated, alienated essence. That is what it means. Enlightenment is realizing that freedom at the deepest level. And therefore, enlightenment is realizing our inexorable interconnectedness. The vast space of reality is nothing but the surface of the interrelations of all things. All of the interconnected things are the reality of emptiness. Therefore emptiness, voidness, freedom are the womb of compassion, the sensitivity and will that refuses to accept anyone's suffering, that automatically wills everyone's happiness.
"Emptiness is the womb of compassion" means that in realizing emptiness we are free of the illusion that we have carried from the beginning of time that "I am the one."
— Robert Thurman, The Jewel Tree of Tibet