Thusness · John Tan

After Anatta · Explorations

What Is a Phenomenon?

Vivid, unfindable and dependently arisen, all at once.

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This page is the whole picture. Each article zooms into one part of it.

Last updated 31 Oct 2026

Anatta asks who is behind experience. This page asks what the experience itself is. For me the second question matters as much as the first: most of the big ideas we live by grow out of how we answer it.

The question

A bell rings. The sound is bright and unmistakable. It is there, and nobody needs to be told so.

Now look for it. Is it in the bell, in the air, in the ear, or in the mind? It is not any of these, and not something apart from them. Yet the sound has not gone anywhere. It is as clear as before, and it came only because the bell, the air, the ear and the attention came together.

So every appearance has three features at the same time:

  • Vivid. It shines, and it cannot be denied.
  • Unfindable. Looked for, it is not found: no core, no edge, no place where it sits.
  • Dependently arisen. It shows up only when its conditions come together.

The mind finds this combination hard to hold. Something fully present cannot be found. Something that cannot be found still works. So the mind fills the gap, and what it fills it with is the rest of this page.

The substance reading

Stated fairly, the substance view says: if a thing is vivid, it must be real in itself. Something must be there, at least for a moment, for the vividness to belong to. And if it is real in itself, it must be somewhere: either out in the world or in here, in my mind.

From that one step, the familiar picture follows. There is an inner theatre that is mine and private. There is a world out there, already given, that the theatre receives. And there are things in that world with powers of their own, pushing one another about.

What is felt What the mind builds vivid, no owner found vivid, the same each time arising from conditions appearing here or there "private", "subjective" "objective", "given" "this has the power to cause that" inside and outside, mind and matter
Each big idea starts from something real in how appearances appear, and then adds a thing that is never found.

What the tradition says

Since there is no phenomenon that has not arisen dependently, there is no phenomenon that is not empty.

Nāgārjuna, MMK 24.19

The own-nature of things is not found in their conditions or the like.

Nāgārjuna, MMK 1.3

Like a dream, like a magical illusion, like a city of gandharvas: so arising, abiding and ceasing are explained.

Nāgārjuna, MMK 7.34 · paraphrase

The chariot test of Candrakīrti (Step 3) is the classic search: not the parts, not apart from them, not their sum or their shape. Searched for in every way, it does not turn up, and it still carries its passenger. The same search works on a sound, a colour or a thought.

Applying the logic

1 · What would a substance view say?A phenomenon is something there, real in itself, at least for an instant. Its vividness proves it. It sits either in the world or in a mind, and it acts by a power of its own.
2 · What does dependency say instead?Appearing already is dependent arising. The red is dependent in the very moment it is red; there is no raw layer underneath that "dependent" is then laid over. And the conditions are as unfindable as what they condition (MMK 1.3): no solid web stands behind the appearance either.
3 · What is affirmed conventionally?Everything that appears, as it appears: colours, sounds, thoughts, cars and birds. My toothache is mine to feel and not yours. The world is shared, and people agree on it. Fire burns, medicine heals, actions bear fruit.
4 · What is never found?The thing itself, here or there, in my mind or in anyone's. A private room behind the eyes. A world given in advance, before any seeing. A power sitting inside a cause and passed into its effect. Even "nowhere": the absence is not a place either.

Where the big ideas come from

This is why the question matters so much. Privacy, subjectivity, objectivity, givenness and causal power are not mistakes made up from nothing. Each one is a real feature of appearing, misread as a thing.

Privacy and subjectivityThe vividness is real, and no owner is found. The habit fills that gap with an owner: "it is in here, it is mine". But the clarity belongs to the appearing itself, the same in a colour, a sound or a thought, not to a viewer behind it. What privacy shows is an asymmetry of access: my toothache depends on this tooth, these nerves and this attention. The asymmetry is real. A hidden room is not.
Objectivity and givennessAppearances repeat. Similar conditions, meeting again and across many people, give similar appearances, and the impression is of something already out there, waiting to be seen. But the regularity is the coherence of dependent arising, not evidence of a thing behind it. Nothing is given before the conditions, and the conditions include the knowing.
Causal powerThings arise when conditions meet, and the habit reads this as one thing pushing another. Look for the power: the key's power to open is found only with the lock, the hand and the door. Causal efficacy is itself a relation. The mark once taken as proof of independent reality is the clearest mark of dependence.
Inside and outside, mind and matterAppearances show up as near or far, as felt or as touched. The habit sorts them into two boxes, each complete on its own side. Searched for, neither box is found. These are ways of appearing and of being described, and none is more real than the others.

So the big ideas are not refuted by denying what they point to. They are loosened by seeing what was added. Once a phenomenon is seen as vivid, unfindable and dependent, each idea keeps its use and loses its weight.

Anatta finds no one behind the appearing. Seeing what a phenomenon is finds no thing in it either.

Two traps

Too much: eternalism

"It is vivid, so it really exists." The self has gone, but the appearances are kept as little real things, or "pure presence" quietly becomes the new ground. This is the trap that waits just after anatta.

Too little: nihilism

"It is unfindable, so it is nothing." The sound, the pain and the medicine are denied, and emptiness is made into a blank or a void behind things. But the absence is not a thing, and the appearing was never denied. Only its standing on its own.

In practice

  • Take one sound and ask three questions. Where exactly is it? What is it made of? Could it appear without the ear, the air and the attention? It stays bright, and nothing is found.
  • When something feels private, ask what the "in here" is made of. When something feels given, ask what it would be before any seeing. When something seems to have power, look for the power apart from what it works with.
  • No search is needed for this to be so. When it is recognised, each appearance is met as it is, vivid and releasing itself as it comes, with nothing to hold and no one holding.

In the chain: this page goes with Vivid and Nowhere (4 of 7); What the Logic Is Looking At (2 of 7). The chain starts at Seeing Comes First.

In the books

Words to know

Phenomenon (dharma)
Anything that can be experienced or known, material or mental, met directly or only thought of.
Unfindable
Looked for, not found: not here, not there, not anywhere, and not even "nowhere".
Dependent arising (pratītyasamutpāda)
Appearing only when conditions come together, with the conditions themselves just as unfindable.
Own-nature (svabhāva)
Being real by itself, from its own side. The one thing the search denies.
The Given
The idea of a raw appearance, there before any seeing or naming. Searched for, not found.
Causal efficacy (arthakriyā)
The ability to do something. Real conventionally, and itself a relation, not a power inside a thing.