it can be said to be empty-of-(anything)other than its own pure, undefiled nature.
it was said by Ashvaghosa in the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana that emptiness contains many excellent qualities and that for this reason emptiness can be called non-empty. Kaizan calls this non empty emptiness. my own feeling differs... i am more in favour of the lankevatara sutras. "even imaglessness is seen not to exist". there is "not a thing" of Wei Lang. "there is from the beginning not a thing, so where is there for the dust to cling."
the myriad qualities of emptiness are in themselves empty... merely appearances. so... emptiness is just empty. and yet cut myself and i appear to bleed. it hurts!
the undefiled nature of emptiness is undefiled because it is empty of all things, even its attributes are empty. i cannot however say that it is empty of itself. this is since buddha nature or own nature is experienced within the subject. ichantika on the other hand... annihilation of buddha nature results in dissapearance of the subject. buddha nature becomes only objective. (this is later teaching and very shocking to some, however it must be noted that buddha nature in this case only ceases within the subject and is still objectively seen.)
also i cannot deny that buddha nature is seen because it glimmers once seen.
there may be evolution of nature after the primary experience of buddha nature, however all subsequent natures are really still only the original nature that was first seen. this is becase all subsequent natures are the same emptiness. this is because basically only emptiness exists regardless of the quality of the buddha nature. subjective buddha nature can be annihilated, however any subsequent nature still remains originally empty.
that means "Ultimate Reality" is more than just the mind of someone that attains Buddhahood--it is everything. once buddha nature has been and is seen one realizes that there is no inifinite, no one, nor many. all things are buddha nature. originally empty, and always empty. it is everything and yet... not a thing. not nothingness, not anythingness and yet all things at the same time.
Shentong is not accessible through conceptual mind but only through faith. emptiness is understood by the conceptual mind, but that does not mean that every one sees it. faith is always helpful, but seeing own nature/emptiness is rational and does not in any way require faith. it is a seeing. directly... that as i type at this computer my seeing the computer is no different from my being the one who types at the computer. seeing is being. there is no difference.
best wishes, Tom.
im sorry, i have to say this... but even the radiance of buddha nature is emptiness. it has no nature. the truth of buddha nature is that it has no self, only the appearance of self perhaps in being subjective as well as objective, but ultimately... nope. no self. and yet we can call this true self. this seeing, but it would be more accurate to call it N
