You can define substantially exist or true distinction however you want, but for me - how I define them - something that substantially exists would require a true distinction to be found between it and what is other than it and that distinction would have to hold on all levels for all observers. Your mileage may vary. 
Can you zoom into Saṁsāra vs nibbāna and say no true distinction? The Buddha said even a little bit of feces is smelly, so too he doesn’t praise a little bit of existence (saṁsāra).
We can also just define water as river, what is without water is bank. And count wet bank as mixture.
It’s like saying “bad? no. that’s not really who you really are deep down inside, step up here to a better place and see how good you can truly be.” in the language of Sunyata. 
That’s all.
To say whether if somethings in it ultimate sense or absolute sense there is no distinction , is almost meaninglessness . I and you are the same without distinction . Is it so ? Philosophical debates on abstraction such as this is but a mind plays which doesnt really ends dukkha .
Venerable @Vaddha, I do hope you will respond here and help clarify where we differ. I’d really like to learn something! Can you help?
I don’t think that the unconditioned exists. 
I think the Buddha taught about freedom from conditions, not an unconditioned; freedom from death, not immortality.
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Nibbana is immortality of the highest nature. 
Forget about exists in this case. Is it actually possible for a mind to know the lack of essence in a thing. Or do you say the lack of essence in a thing is not unconditioned?
Let’s take a very particular thing for example: yourself. Is it actually possible for you to ever know that you lack essence? Or do you say the fact that you lack essence is not unconditioned?
Please keep in mind what I said about ‘conditioned’ versus ‘dependent’ when answering this question.
Why would anyone seriously act like Dependent Origination is the most obvious and evident teaching there ever was - when one only one, a Buddha, among billions of beings teaches DO?
Then Venerable Ānanda went up to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and said to him, “It’s incredible, sir, it’s amazing, in that this dependent origination is deep and appears deep, yet to me it seems as plain as can be.”
“Don’t say that, Ānanda, don’t say that! This dependent origination is deep and appears deep. It is because of not understanding and not penetrating this teaching that this population has become tangled like string, knotted like a ball of thread, and matted like rushes and reeds, and it doesn’t escape the places of loss, the bad places, the underworld, transmigration.
While we are all still feeling our way through this amazing and unique teaching by The Buddha in the suttas we should not try to argue that our very specific conditioned feelings regarding the Dhamma and Nibbāna are the ”true” feelings that somehow resonate the best with goal of the practice: No feelings at all.
If some want to adopt extreme views to somehow give the impression of being dispassionate, fine by me.
But I’m still not getting the impression that such statements are rooted in dispassion, but instead actually rooted in extreme feelings.
I think the Buddha has seen that one can empty mind and meet its essence, its mere empty and intelligent/luminous knowing nature. One can, as it were, arrive at the essence of mind and see this is no atta, not ego, not an entity that feels, sees, lives and dies etc. This removes all blindness for what mind really is. It has never been as we have always perceived it: an atta, a entity like thing.
But reasoning is useless in all this. One must really see this.
In the same way we can arrive at the essence of the body, feelings, etc etc. In direct knowledge of it.
Not a result of thinking and conceiving.
But then how would you answer to the question:
After doing an intentional deed by way of body, speech, or mind, what does one feel?
According to contact, which can be conditioned by kamma.
Any feeling whatsoever, pleasant, unpleasant or neither, past, future, present, internal, external, gross, subtle, inferior, superior, far or near must be seen with right wisdom thus: This is not mine, this I am not, this is not myself. Also, they are dukkha and impermanent.
But then isn’t your answer similar to the one in MN136:
“After doing an intentional deed by way of body, speech, or mind, reverend, one feels dukha.”
It does not seem to me the Buddha calls sukha to be dukha in the following reply, neither approves of the idea ‘Suffering includes whatever is felt.’?
When they had spoken, the Buddha said to Ānanda, “I don’t recall even seeing the wanderer Potaliputta, Ānanda, so how could we have had such a discussion? The wanderer Potaliputta’s question should have been answered after analyzing it, but this foolish person answered categorically.”
When he said this, Venerable Udāyī said to him, “But perhaps, sir, Venerable Samiddhi spoke in reference to the statement: ‘Suffering includes whatever is felt.’”
But the Buddha said to Venerable Ānanda, “See how this foolish person Udāyī comes up with an idea? I knew that he was going to come up with such an irrational idea. Right from the start Potaliputta asked about the three feelings. Suppose the foolish person Samiddhi had answered the wanderer Potaliputta’s question like this: ‘After doing an intentional deed to be experienced as pleasant by way of body, speech, or mind, one feels pleasure. After doing an intentional deed to be experienced as painful by way of body, speech, or mind, one feels pain. After doing an intentional deed to be experienced as neutral by way of body, speech, or mind, one feels neutral.’ Answering in this way, Samiddhi would have rightly answered Potaliputta.
I didn’t say this:
“After doing an intentional deed by way of body, speech, or mind, reverend, one feels suffering.” Then, neither approving nor dismissing Samiddhi’s statement, Potaliputta got up from his seat and left.
I clearly stated that there’s 3 types of feelings to be felt depending on conditions, and go further to apply the characteristics of dukkha to them all.
The reply which is critiqued in the sutta is because just using dukkha alone without qualification would make people think that it’s dukkha dukkha, or dukkha due to unpleasant feelings. Whereas to make sense of pleasant feelings is also dukkha, one has to apply the dukkha due to change and dukkha due to conditionality, which are more subtle, not commonly known by those who are not educated in the Buddha’s dhamma.
Are you not familiar with the other 2 dukkhas? I made a whole thing about it here: Three types of Suffering - #63 by NgXinZhao
The linked reply makes it clear. Thank you.
On topic of temporal nature of things and dukha:
Eg.: I would not say form is suffering, neither perishing of any form is suffering, because there are many forms which are perishing around the world yet cause no suffering to you and me.
However, having a desire/greed for form and then having it perish is what leads to suffering.
What is really interesting with MN 136 is that eventhough Venerable Samiddhi & the wanderer Potaliputta disagree when it comes to deeds, they both agree that:
“Reverend Samiddhi, I have heard and learned this in the presence of the ascetic Gotama: ‘Deeds by way of body and speech are done in vain. Only mental deeds are real.’ And: ‘There is such an attainment where the one who enters it does not feel anything at all.’”
“Don’t say that, Reverend Potaliputta, don’t say that! Don’t misrepresent the Buddha, for misrepresentation of the Buddha is not good. And the Buddha would not say this. But, reverend, there is such an attainment where the one who enters it does not feel anything at all.”
The Buddha says the following in MN 59 The Many Kinds of Feeling:
It’s possible that wanderers of other religions might say, ‘The ascetic Gotama spoke of the cessation of perception and feeling, and he includes it in happiness. What’s up with that?’
When wanderers of other religions say this, you should say to them, ‘Reverends, when the Buddha describes what’s included in happiness, he’s not just referring to pleasant feeling. The Realized One describes pleasure as included in happiness wherever it is found, and in whatever context.’”
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That describes equanimity, right?
MN140
There remains only equanimity, pure, bright, pliable, workable, and radiant.
Just use the term unsatisfactory is more intuitive. Regardless of us having contact with a rock somewhere in the world, as long as the rock cannot give us permanent happiness (nibbāna), it is unsatisfactory, or dukkha.
So it seems dukha means to you anything that cannot give one permanent happiness. That is quite a different definition of dukha - the scope includes even things that do not cause one dukha, but fail to provide permanent happiness. Where did this definition of dukha come from?
In suttas suffering is defined as:
“And what, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering? Birth is suffering, old age is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, dejection, and anguish are suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering. This is called the noble truth of suffering.
If I were to apply this equanimity, so pure and bright, to the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, my mind would develop accordingly. And this equanimity of mine, relying on that and grasping it, would remain for a very long time.’
They understand: ‘If I were to apply this equanimity, so pure and bright, to the dimension of infinite space, my mind would develop accordingly. But that is conditioned. If I were to apply this equanimity, so pure and bright, to the dimension of infinite consciousness … nothingness … neither perception nor non-perception, my mind would develop accordingly. But that is conditioned.’
They neither make a choice nor form an intention to continue existence or to end existence. Because of this, they don’t grasp at anything in the world. Not grasping, they’re not anxious. Not being anxious, they personally become extinguished.
They understand: ‘Rebirth is ended, the spiritual journey has been completed, what had to be done has been done, there is no return to any state of existence.’
So with equanimity one is still stuck in Samsara.
- ‘The ascetic Gotama spoke of the cessation of perception and feeling, and he includes it in happiness. What’s up with that?’
- ‘There is such an attainment where the one who enters it does not feel anything at all.’”
“Reverends, extinguishment is bliss! Extinguishment is bliss!”
When he said this, Venerable Udāyī said to him, “But Reverend Sāriputta, what’s blissful about it, since nothing is felt?”
“The fact that nothing is felt is precisely what’s blissful about it.