Videos and Audios made by John Tan. Remember to hit Subscribe to John Tan’s YouTube channel!

Reality Isn’t Made of Things — It’s Made of Relations:

To Function is to be Empty: Resolving the Paradox of Reality:

The Anatomy of a Label: How Words Create Our Reality:

The Miracle of the Unfindable: Why You Must Be Empty to Function (Phase 6):

The Miracle of the Unfindable: Why You Must Be Empty to Function (version 2):

Who Am I Vs Anatta:

Relation without Relata:

The Handshake That Creates The Hands:

Audio Teachings:

The Silent Witness is a Trap:
https://files.awakeningtoreality.com/The_Silent_Witness_Is_a_Trap.mp3

Everything is a Luminous Empty Display:
https://files.awakeningtoreality.com/Everything_is_a_luminous_empty_display.m4a

The Universe is Verbs, Not Nouns:
https://files.awakeningtoreality.com/The_universe_is_verbs_not_nouns.m4a

The Handshake That Creates the Hands:
https://files.awakeningtoreality.com/The_Handshake_That_Creates_the_Hands.m4a

Update

A reader recently sent me a message sharing that they experience everything as "just particles." John Tan responded:

Not everything is just particles; even that concept must be deconstructed without falling into nihilism. This realization comes when we understand how the vividness of luminous clarity and mental designations are enough to fabricate a vivid world of things that appear so "solidly real." — John Tan

Further Discussion on Relationality and Emptiness

Mr. CG: “Relationalities are the very texture of appearance… There is no background mirror… the interdependent contrasting reflections themselves are the mirror.” To me it sounds like he subtly reifies relationality. But there is no inherent relationality to be found. Maybe I misinterpret.

Soh Wei Yu: He does not reify relationality, but sees this point clearly:

Yin Ling · Tsongkhapa short verse on his profound enlightenment to the truth.
***
In a short verse work composed as a letter to his first attendant, Tsakho Ngawang Drakpa, Tsongkhapa would articulate this crucial point about the equation between emptiness and dependent origination:

When, with respect to all phenomena of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa,
You see that cause and effect never transgress their laws,
And when you have dismantled the focus of objectification,
At that point, you have entered the path that pleases the buddhas.

As long as the two understandings—
Of appearance, the regulated world of dependent origination,
And of emptiness, the absence of all standpoints—remain separate,
You have not realized the intent of the Sage.

However, at some point when, without alteration and at once,
The instant you see that dependent origination is undeceiving
If the entire object of grasping at certitude is dismantled,
At that point your analysis of the view is complete.

Furthermore, when appearance dispels the extreme of existence,
And when emptiness dispels the extreme of nonexistence,
And you understand how emptiness arises as cause and effect,
You will never be swayed by views grasping at extremes.

John Tan: This is perhaps the most important point for me post anatta insight. So profound and deep.

Yin Ling: John Tan yes and you emphasise this repetitively so thank you.

John Tan: Yin Ling yes. Tsongkhapa is familiar with emptiness free from all elaborations in traditional tibetan schools and in fact in his earlier days, he accepted this view. But many in the traditional schools see the ultimate that lacks sameness or difference, i.e, non-arisen of "sameness" of "difference" as literally "no" sameness or difference thinking that "oh ultimately they are just conceptual notions". Instead, Tsongkhapa pointed out that this "unestablished" free from elaborations means dependent arising, dependent on conditions, "this is, that is".

Soh Wei Yu:

“EMPTINESS DEVIATING TO THE BASIC NATURE
Timeless Deviation to the Nature of Knowables
The meditation of inseparable phenomena and emptiness is called “emptiness endowed with the supreme aspect.” Not knowing how emptiness and interdependence abide in nonduality, you decide that emptiness is a nothingness that has never existed and that is not influenced at all by qualities or defects. Then you underestimate the cause and effect of virtue and vice, or else lapse exclusively into the nature of all things being originally pure, primordially free, and so forth. Bearing such emptiness, the relative level of interdependence is not mastered. In this respect, this is what is known as mahamudra: one’s basic nature is unoriginated and, since it is neither existent nor nonexistent, eternal nor nil, true nor false, nor any other such aspects, it has no existence whatsoever. Nonetheless, its unceasing radiance arises as the relative level of all kinds of interdependence, so it is known as emptiness having the core of interdependence and interdependence having the nature of emptiness. Therefore, emptiness does not stray to the nature of knowables. In the Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way it is said:

Anything that doesn’t arise dependently
Is a phenomenon that has no existence.
Therefore anything that is not empty
Is a phenomenon that has no existence.

And as said in the Commentary on Bodhichitta:
It is taught that the relative plane is emptiness,
And emptiness alone is the relative plane.”
– The Royal Seal of Mahamudra, Volume 2, Khamtrul Rinpoche

“A lot of talk on here lately about how lame relative reality is vs how awesome ultimate reality is.
Apparently an omniscient master is supposed to see how both the relative and the ultimate exist at the same time in a Union of Appearance and Emptiness.
It's because everything is dependently arisen that it can be seen as empty.
Not even the smallest speck exists by its own power.
Je Tsongkhapa said, "Since objects do not exist through their own nature, they are established as existing through the force of convention."
He was the biggest proponent of keeping vows and virtuous actions through all stages of sutra and tantra.
He also leveraged the relative by practicing millions of prostrations and offering mandalas.
He also practiced generation and completion stages of tantra while keeping his conduct spotless.
He held conduct in the highest regard in all of his texts on tantra such as his masterwork, A Lamp to Illuminate the Five Stages.”
- Jason Parker, 2019

The birth of certainty ~ Lama Tsongkhapa
The knowledge that appearances arise unfailingly in dependence,
And the knowledge that they are empty and beyond all assertions—
As long as these two appear to you as separate,
There can be no realization of the Buddha’s wisdom.

Yet when they arise at once, not each in turn but both together,
Then through merely seeing unfailing dependent origination
Certainty is born, and all modes of misapprehension fall apart—
That is when discernment of the view has reached perfection.
– Lama Tsongkhapa

Soh Wei Yu: Longchenpa on Nihilism. From Finding Rest in the Nature of Mind.

Those who scorn the law of karmic cause and fruit
Are students of the nihilist view outside the Dharma.
They rely on the thought that all is void;
They fall in the extreme of nothingness
And go from higher to lower states.
They have embarked on an evil path
And from the evil destinies will have no freedom,
Casting happy states of being far away.

”The law of karmic cause and fruit,
Compassion and the gathering of merit -
All this is but provisional teaching fit for children:
Enlightenment will not be gained thereby.
Great yogis should remain without intentional action.
They should meditate upon reality that is like space.
Such is the definitive instruction.”

The view of those who speak like this
Of all views is the most nihilist:
They have embraced the lowest of all paths.
How strange is this!
They want a fruit but have annulled its cause.
If reality is but a space-like void,
What need is there to meditate?
And if it is not so, then even if one meditates
Such efforts are to no avail.
If meditation on mere voidness leads to liberation,
Even those with minds completely blank
Attain enlightenment!
But since those people have asserted meditation,
Cause and its result they thus establish!
Throw far away such faulty paths as these!

The true, authentic path asserts
The arising in dependence of both cause and fruit,
The natural union of skillful means and wisdom.
Through the causality of nonexistent but appearing acts,
Through meditation on the nonexistent but appearing path,
The fruit is gained, appearing and yet nonexistent;
And for the sake of nonexistent but appearing beings,
Enlightened acts, appearing and yet nonexistent, manifest.
Such is pure causality’s profound interdependence.

This is the essential pith
Of all the Sutra texts whose meaning is definitive
And indeed of all the tantras.
Through the joining of the two accumulations,
The generation and completion stages,
Perfect buddhahood is swiftly gained.

Thus all the causal processes
Whereby samsara is contrived should be abandoned,
And all acts that are the cause of liberation
Should be earnestly performed.
High position in samsara
And the final excellence of buddhahood
Will speedily be gained.
- Finding Rest in the Nature of Mind (vol 1)

Also by Longchenpa:

"To reject practice by saying, ‘it is conceptual!’ is the path of fools. A tendency of the inexperienced and something to be avoided.”
— Longchenpa

Mr. TJ: John Tan do you consider this most crucial post-anatta insight fundamentally different from the other post-anatta insights discussed at length on the blog? Such as +A/maha/total exertion or spontaneous perfection? Does anyone other than Tsongkhapa and his followers clearly point to it?

John Tan: Mr. TJ no. It does not differ +A and -A, the natural openness requires that understanding. Tsongkhapa is profoundly insightful and revolutionary in certain sense, unfortunately I am not familiar with his other followers. However in my opinion what Tsongkhapa expounded cannot be understood by analysis alone, we can't logically deduce or induce what he said, it can only be experientially authenticated.

Dear friends,

A few new Awakening to Reality updates to share:

1. John Tan’s YouTube channel

John Tan has started uploading videos to his YouTube channel, and we have created a new AtR page to collect his YouTube videos and related audios here:

https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2026/05/union-of-dependent-arising-and-emptiness.html

The current materials include teachings and pointers on dependent arising, emptiness, anatta, post-anatta insight, the vividness of appearances, dependent designation, freedom from extremes, and the experiential understanding of how emptiness and dependent arising are not separate.

John will continue uploading more videos in the coming days, weeks, and months, so please keep checking back. The page will be updated as more YouTube videos and audio materials become available. Remember to hit Subscribe to John Tan’s YouTube channel!

2. Awakening to Reality blog redesign

The AtR blog has also been redesigned with a new Cosmic Dawn Dharma Library Theme. Unique design by Soh for Awakening to Reality.

Check it out for yourself: https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/

The desktop version now looks more refined and spacious, with a clearer article area, improved sidebar presentation, better search visibility, and a more contemplative purple-gold visual theme.

There is also now a proper mobile-responsive version. On phones, the site is much easier to read, with a compact “Start Here” / library preview near the top, while the full AtR Dharma Library remains available after the article.

Special thanks to Nafis Rahman for testing, and to both Nafis and William Lim for pushing me to finally implement proper mobile responsiveness. Without their feedback, I might have kept postponing it.

3. Updated Awakening to Reality Practice Guide + the Longer Original AtR Guide

The Awakening to Reality Practice Guide and the Longer Original AtR Guide have also been updated. Both the English and Chinese versions have been refreshed.

You can find the updated guides here:

https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2022/06/the-awakening-to-reality-practice-guide.html

The guides remains one of the best starting points for those who are new to AtR, especially for understanding the stages of insight, from I AM to anatta and emptiness, and practice orientation in a concise and structured way.

Please feel free to share these resources with anyone who may benefit.

This is a transcript of a conversation with Eden, shared with permission. Eden wrote: “Totally fine! My name is Eden” and “Honored to be on the blog!”

Note: This version has been lightly converted from chat-log style for readability using Prompt 8: obvious typos, punctuation, capitalization, and shorthand have been cleaned, while emojis, technical terms, quoted passages, links, chronology, speaker identity, and substantive meaning are preserved. A closed Zangthal / AMS screenshot is intentionally omitted from this public transcript, and one cut-off screenshot line is marked.

THU 10:33

Image shared: ATR / anatta article excerpt

[Cited excerpts from John Tan's article On Anatta (No-Self), Emptiness, Maha and Ordinariness, and Spontaneous Perfection] absence of an agent. These 2 experiences are key for my phase 5 of the 7 phases of insights.

1. The lack of doer-ship that links and co-ordinates experiences.
Without the 'I' that links, phenomena (thoughts, sound, feelings and so on and so forth) appear bubble-like, floating and manifesting freely, spontaneously and boundlessly. With the absence of the doer-ship also comes a deep sense of freedom and transparency. Ironical as it may sound but it's true experientially. We will not have the right understanding when we hold too tightly 'inherent' view. It is amazing how 'inherent' view prevents us from seeing freedom as no-doership, interdependence and interconnectedness, luminosity and non-dual presence.

2. The direct insight of the absence of an agent.
In this case, there is a direct recognition that there is “no agent”. Just one thought then another thought. So it is always thought watching thought rather than a watcher watching thought. However the gist of this realization is skewed towards a spontaneous liberating experience and a vague glimpse of the empty nature of phenomena -- that is, the transient phenomena being bubble-like and ephemeral, nothing substantial or solid. At this phase we should not misunderstand that we have experienced thoroughly the ‘empty’ nature of phenomena and awareness, although there is this temptation to think we have. :-)

Depending on the conditions of an individual, it may not be obvious that it is “always thought watching thought rather than a watcher watching thought.” or "the watcher is that thought." Because this is the key insight and a step that cannot afford to be wrong along the path of liberation, I cannot help but with some disrespectful tone say,

For those masters that taught,
“Let thoughts arise and subside,
See the background mirror as perfect and be unaffected.”
With all due respect, they have just “blah” something nice
but deluded.

Eden / 李亦登:
I watched all of John Tan's videos and then made a transcript of the one titled “Reality Isn't Made of Things” to share with a friend, and then I read over it again.

I was about to fall asleep and was reading this again for the 100th time, but the second part hit me.

Eden / 李亦登:
It's just thought after thought after thought, no constant background.

Eden / 李亦登:
It was clear that my way of “being in rigpa” was just conceptuality, a thought confirming and still going on undetected.

Eden / 李亦登:
Until I saw it, how silly, how could that thought be any of this? How could it ever stain this? So much easier and simpler and so obvious, but it was totally unclear before when I read that second part.

Eden / 李亦登:
You said:

"From a letting go perspective, "a watcher watching thought" will create the impression that a watcher is allowing thoughts to arise and subside while itself being unaffected. This is an illusion; it is 'holding' in disguise as 'letting go'."

Exactly what was happening.

Soh:
Do you experience instant presence?

Eden / 李亦登:
Yes, it's so immediate.

Eden / 李亦登:
I get why it's called instant now.

Eden / 李亦登:
It's so intimate, so close, right here.

Soh:
What is it like? Before yesterday, did you also experience presence, and what was it like?

Eden / 李亦登:
It feels like fully inhabiting all senses, no residue and no film in between.

Eden / 李亦登:
Before, I thought I did experience instant presence.

Eden / 李亦登:
But now I see it was still a fabrication, a subtle reification of a watcher.

Eden / 李亦登:
I still needed to put effort in, to maintain something that I had thought was it.

Eden / 李亦登:
Now it's effortless.

Eden / 李亦登:
Like, pervasive, so obvious, no effort needed. Clear, like there's nothing wrong and nothing to do.

Eden / 李亦登:
Before, I had to go through the mental motions of “oh, I'm going to be in instant presence,” and then I was also subtly grasping at an idea or thought of how it was supposed to be. But now it's just immediate and instant, like if I were to flip a switch, but the light was already on. Full contact already.

[Closed Zangthal / AMS [Ācārya Malcolm Smith] screenshot was shared privately here and is intentionally omitted from this public transcript.]

Eden / 李亦登:
The past few days, I've been trying to understand what AMS [Ācārya Malcolm Smith] meant when he pushes back against “candle illuminates itself,” because I didn't understand what was wrong with it. But then I came across this post today and reread it, and it didn't really click until I reread ATR.

Image shared: WhatsApp with John Tan, 10:56

John Tan:
The video? That was from the anatta article.

Soh:
Yeah, he quoted your article.

John Tan:
Then he gets what?

Soh:
I think he saw no background.

Soh:
Before that, he talked to me about presence, but it sounded I AM.

Soh:
His previous I AM awakening was through Dzogchen practices and teachings.

John Tan:
I see. Post-anatta, one has to have all those mini experiences of total exertion as undivided activity in experience.

Then work on maturing deeply the view due to the desync of view and experience to overcome cognitive obscurance. Otherwise, effortlessness and natural spontaneity are impossible by insights and experiences alone.

👍

John Tan:
It is not easy to clearly understand the relational view correctly and apply the logic.

Soh:
I was reminded of something:

Soh:
What John said here in 2013, highlighted part.

Image shared: 2013 transcript / page 2069 of 2487

John Tan:
Awareness aware of itself soon becomes dead.

The measure of one's depth is in the ineffability and marvelous manifestation in activity. Anatta and emptiness cannot be dead.

Soh Wei Yu:

I see.

John Tan:

Every time I go on tour, my Awareness just heightens multifold.

Soh:
Cool, your anatta breakthrough was also in Korea.

Soh:
I mean the first two lines: “Awareness aware of itself” and “The measure of one's depth.”

Eden / 李亦登:
Yes, exactly. The awareness of awareness is just what I was doing before. It felt like what everyone was talking about, but it was the difference between the idea of openness and the vivid, ever-changing experience of openness that is absolutely not dead.

Eden / 李亦登:
It's more like, “What the hell is this? What is going on?”

Eden / 李亦登:
What does he mean by “maturing deeply the view due to the desync of view and experience”?

Eden / 李亦登:
“The mirror is not perfect; it is the happening that is perfect. The mirror appears to be perfect only to a dualistic and inherent view.”

Absolutely true. Before, I was still reifying awareness as a state to be in, even though I knew not to. It was so, so subtle but ended up just being another thought. It was a thought that tried to make reality a kind of way, still subtly getting distance from everything and trying to control subtly. But the happening is already perfect; there was nothing to fix or to control or to change about all of this at all.

Soh:
Related to https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2022/02/a-letter-to-almaas-on-dzogchen-and.html

Eden / 李亦登:
I read this right before going to the anatta article. I'll reread it again.

Soh:
Yeah, you should read the whole article again. Also, the relevant part starts from:

The
Philosophical Foundations of
Classical rDzogs chen in Tibet:
Investigating the Distinction
Between Dualistic Mind (sems) and
Primordial knowing (ye shes)
John Tan: He goes on to point out
that self-occurring primordial
knowing lacks most of the qualities
associated with the Yogacara
svasaṃvedana - its [message continues, but the screenshot cuts off here]

Image shared: WhatsApp with John Tan, 11:20

John Tan:
Yes, that is experiences and insights, but our view itself is still inherent. This means that whenever we attempt to logically analyze or understand, the conceptual mind becomes immobilized.

This habitual way of understanding and analyzing runs very deep and is the default framework for orienting our world.

This is the desync between insights, experiences, and the view we deeply hold.

When our conceptual mind encounters teachings like Nagarjuna Madhyamakakarika, the mind just immobilizes and can't understand anything.

It can't see how past, present, and future contradict. How causal efficacy is maintained, how eight extremes are overcome from a non-substantialist standpoint.

It is like when I asked you the question two decades ago: this moment ceases as it arises, does it arise or cease?

Eden / 李亦登:
It's like he's reading me. 😭

I was just reading Chandrakirtis Madhyamakavatara before bed and then stopped because all my mind was doing was becoming immobilized. Before reading John's message, I thought that was the whole point of Madhyamaka; but, as he says, I don't think it is, because they obviously understand something, and it's not just a paralyzed mind.

Eden / 李亦登:
What they understand, though, I don't know. I will have to deepen the view.

Eden / 李亦登:
Thank you, Soh. I get what desync is now.

Eden / 李亦登:
I will continue to read. 🙏 Endless gratitude to you and John Tan.

10:30

Soh:
Is it okay if I share this conversation on the ATR blog? I can also anonymize your name if you prefer.

Eden / 李亦登:
Totally fine! My name is Eden.

Eden / 李亦登:
Honored to be on the blog!

Soh:
Great, thanks.

In the past, there was a master who contemplated, “What is the original face before my parents were born?” He contemplated for many years but did not awaken. Later, he encountered a great noble person and requested compassionate guidance.

The noble one asked, “What koan did you contemplate?”

He replied, “I contemplated: what is the original face before my parents were born?”

The noble one replied, “You contemplated too far away. You should look nearby.”

He asked, “How should I look nearby?”

The noble one replied, “Do not look into what is before your parents were born. Instead, look at this: before a thought arises, what is it?”

The Zen practitioner immediately attained great awakening.

Everyone sitting here, please look: before a moment of thought arises, what is this? It is radiating light in front of everybody’s sense doors. Its brightness illuminates everything, yet it is without the slightest clinging. Nothing is known and nothing is seen, yet it is not like wood and stones. What is this?

It is right here, shining in its brilliance. This is awakening to the Way. Therefore it is said, “The great Way is not difficult; just cease speech and words!”

- Yuan Yin Lao Ren

The knee-jerk answer for many people, when asked what they are before thinking, is: “Oh, nothing.”

But you are clearly not a void or nothingness. You are clearly still conscious, present, existing, and aware. What exactly is that?

If thought says, “Oh, Awareness!” that is just another thought — and again, precisely not what you are.

So you keep investigating, non-verbally, what you actually are before all words, definitions, thoughts, and labels. Before all conceivable and perceivable phenomena, what are you actually?

This is also helpful:

What is your very Mind right now?

Do read it in its entirety.

In the past, there was a master who contemplated, “What is the original face before my parents were born?” He contemplated for many years but did not awaken. Later, he encountered a great noble person and requested compassionate guidance.

The noble one asked, “What koan did you contemplate?”

He replied, “I contemplated: what is the original face before my parents were born?”

The noble one replied, “You contemplated too far away. You should look nearby.”

He asked, “How should I look nearby?”

The noble one replied, “Do not look into what is before your parents were born. Instead, look at this: before a thought arises, what is it?”

The Zen practitioner immediately attained great awakening.

Everyone sitting here, please look: before a moment of thought arises, what is this? It is radiating light in front of everybody’s sense doors. Its brightness illuminates everything, yet it is without the slightest clinging. Nothing is known and nothing is seen, yet it is not like wood and stones. What is this?

It is right here, shining in its brilliance. This is awakening to the Way. Therefore it is said, “The great Way is not difficult; just cease speech and words!”

- Yuan Yin Lao Ren

The knee-jerk answer for many people, when asked what they are before thinking, is: “Oh, nothing.”

But you are clearly not a void or nothingness. You are clearly still conscious, present, existing, and aware. What exactly is that?

If thought says, “Oh, Awareness!” that is just another thought — and again, precisely not what you are.

So you keep investigating, non-verbally, what you actually are before all words, definitions, thoughts, and labels. Before all conceivable and perceivable phenomena, what are you actually?

This is also helpful:

What is your very Mind right now?

Do read it in its entirety.