Is emptiness like an essence?

I can't find an easy quote, but e.g. > Since emptiness is a necessary characteristic of things, it belongs to > them essentially If we can find something like an essence, then is it emptiness, and is it everywhere the same? There is an essence, in some sense, of time such that I am not now dead. So do we know there is no ultimate death, the buddha only appears to die, and does emptiness as the one universal essence suffice to show it. What is the exact conceptual relation between emptiness and essence?