Thusness · John Tan

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How to read the four books

What the books are about, how they fit together, and four ways in, depending on what you are looking for.

What the books are about

Watch a whirlpool in a river. It has a shape you could sketch and a place you could point to. Yet not one drop of its water stays in it for more than a moment. Ask what the whirlpool is, apart from the water passing through it, and nothing can be found. Ask whether it is therefore unreal, and leaves thrown into it go on spinning.

All four books are about that double fact: things appear vividly and work reliably, and yet nothing is found standing on its own when it is looked for. The books apply it to everything we take to exist from its own side: objects, persons, minds, moments, causes, and the observer who seems to stand behind experience.

This is not nihilism. Nothing is taken away from the world. What falls away is a habit of thought: the sense that behind each appearance there must be a thing, a self or a ground holding it up.

The five books at a glance

Reading times are approximate
  1. 1The Logical Necessity of a Substrateless WorldThe argument. A step-by-step logical case that nothing can be coherently posited as existing from its own side, and what follows for mind, death, perception and science. 15 chapters, about 3 hours.Begin
  2. 2The Transition from Anatta to EmptinessThe lived path. How that case came to be lived: from the collapse of the observer, through dependent designation, to emptiness. It includes a shorter companion for newer readers. About 3½ hours.Begin
  3. 3Nāgārjuna's Middle WayThe root text. Nāgārjuna's Fundamental Verses, chapter by chapter: the Sanskrit, a new English translation and a plain explanation with diagrams. The other books lean on it throughout. 27 chapters; dip in.Begin
  4. 4The Observer and the Taste of PresenceThe shortest way through. One line of thought, from the search for a witness behind experience to the Dzogchen phrase "beyond cause and effect". 23 short chapters, about 1 hour.Begin
  5. 5The Logic After AnattaThe logic, step by step. The two logics, substance and dependency, in eight steps, each with its own video, then the four questions asked of eleven big questions. It is the home page of this site.Begin

How they fit together

Nāgārjuna's Middle Way is the source. Its verses supply the arguments the other books use: the examination of causes and of motion, the eight extremes, the two truths.

The Logical Necessity of a Substrateless World makes the case in full, as logic. The Transition from Anatta to Emptiness shows how the same view was lived and tested in practice. The two are companions: one argues, the other traces the experience.

The Observer and the Taste of Presence is the newest and shortest. It follows one question, whether the observer can be found, and brings Madhyamaka and Dzogchen together around it. Several of its chapters grew out of the bonus articles.

The Logic After Anatta gathers the reasoning of all four into eight steps and a four-question test, and applies it to eleven big questions. Begin there if you want the logic first.

The nine bonus articles can each be read in one sitting. For the logic itself, start with The Logic of Dependency, now part of The Logic.

All four books and the articles share one view, set out on a single page in the Canon View: everything, mind included, is empty of its own nature, and luminous clarity is the knowing clarity of appearing, as empty as everything else.

Four ways in

Pick the one that fits you

New to these ideas

Start short and concrete.

  1. The Logic of Dependency, part of The Logic (about 20 minutes).
  2. Book 4, Chapters 1 and 2: looking for the observer.
  3. Book 2, A Beginner's Companion to the Main Text.
  4. Then Book 1 from its Introduction.

You want the argument

Follow the logic step by step.

  1. Book 1 in order, from the Introduction.
  2. Keep its Glossary to hand.
  3. When a chapter cites Nāgārjuna, open that chapter of Book 3.
  4. Test it against the bonus articles, which answer common objections.

You practise

Start from experience.

  1. Book 2 from the Preface and The Starting Point.
  2. Book 4, Part I (the observer) and Part IV (beyond cause and effect).
  3. The bonus articles Two Modes, One Seeing and Beyond Cause and Effect.

You want the source

Go to Nāgārjuna.

  1. Chapter 1, on conditions: how anything comes about.
  2. Chapter 18, on the self, and Chapter 24, on emptiness and the two truths.
  3. Then any chapter. Each one links to where the other books discuss it.

Read, listen, watch or ask

Every chapter can be read on the site, or read aloud: press Listen on any chapter. Many pages also have a short narrated video with drawings; they are all on the Watch page. And you can ask a question: the answer comes only from the books' own text, with links to the chapters it used.

There is no need to finish one book before starting another. The books return to the same examples from different sides, and each return is worth looking at again.