"Elsewhere, I’ve argued that the Buddhist denial of personhood is misleading. [...] The holy trinity of Buddhism, as it were, is a trio of perceptions of certain marks of existence, namely that everything is impermanent (anicca), that mundane life is unsatisfactory (dukkha), and that there’s no permanent or essential self or soul (anatman). [...] If that’s roughly the point of the anatman teaching"

Those are your words (also from another article). That's the misunderstanding of anatman I was talking about. You, as well as your common Buddhist, presuppose that with mind it all begins and ends. That's why Buddhists obsess about stilling the mind, emptiness, and meditation olympics. Similarly, Hindus usually imagine atman as ego. But those are both just two sides of the same coin of gross misunderstanding. Anatman simply puts straight the Hinduistic misconception, alas during the millennia it became synonymous with mindlessness and the notion that there is no one there, which is obviously BS, as the sole fact, even if there really was no one there, is indubitably known.

Perhaps I already mentioned it, but, in a sense, Buddhism is the strictess non-dual school there is -- it does not mention the absolute in any way and only tip-toes around concepts Hinduisms plainly puts into words. Similar obsession with not naming the absolute you can find in Judaism. Mind you, it's not for giggles or because of some silly whim. Putting a name on the absolute immediately evokes an image of a third person and an external object to search for, or idol if you will. And that is an antithesis, provided one is really interested to know the absolute.

As for nihilism and the usual picture of "detached, unmotivated sage" -- emptiness simply means lack of intrinsic values. The nature of the world is suchness. In other words, everything is what it is. You may call it tautology, I call it knowledge. Thus, there is no place for nihilism as it has no footing and renders itself moot.