[Janny2006]

Sounds like you're not doing to bad from your explanation. I can add a few things to see if they help complete your understanding.
Emptiness is not nothingness, this is sometimes a misunderstanding that people get.
Things do exist relatively but they do not exist as solid, perminat and unchanging things which is how we perceive them to be. Everything from a Human to a rock is in constant flux.
My living room table is made of wood, it's real, I can feel it but its changing, It used to be a tree and before that a seed and all the things that went into feeding the tree as it grew. Things we see as things are more occurances than they are things.
I'm not very good at explaing these things in words but hope it's of some help to you