 The first innovation is Dushun’s decision to use the Chinese term li (principle/pattern) to characterize the nature of ultimate reality. Indian Mahayana typically characterizes the nature of ultimate reality as emptiness (Skt. sunyata) or suchness (Skt. tathata). Both of these terms connote something that defies conceptualization. Dushun imbues li with an epistemological connotation: li is that which is present to those who achieve nirvana. Nirvanic experience, as Dushun understands it, reveals neither emptiness nor an undifferentiated manifold but, instead, boundless and ceaseless activity that has a patterned coherence to it (see Jiang 2001, 466–467; for a contrary interpretation, see Gimello 1976a, 125). 