The question posed by Mr. A—"How does your view treat reality outside of one's mind? Do you believe that everything is mind, or is there reality distinct from it that interacts with the mind?"—cuts to the heart of one of the most enduring dilemmas in philosophy and contemplative inquiry. It presents a binary choice that has defined much of Western and Eastern thought: are you an idealist, who posits that reality is fundamentally mental, or a realist, who holds that a physical world exists independently of our perception of it?"

Soh responded:

As John Tan commented, "Dependent arising is precisely to address these extreme views via emptiness."

John Tan also said in 2015: "External objects are only valid conventionally, not ultimately. What cannot be separated was mistaken as separated due to conventions, and then when we attempt to trace back using our existing paradigm, we logically deduce it must be either oneness in substance or as interactions between entities. However, one that has tasted anatta in real time sees that neither is true. It cannot be expressed either as one substance or as an interaction between separate entities. One further refines one's view through MMK (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā) and realizes the impossibility of manifestation in such views. The mind can then willingly release itself and rest in empty, non-arising appearances. If we refuse to clearly see the two truths, the mind will never find its place; it cannot rest, as it is unable to release the paradigm that defines it. To be thoughtless and non-conceptual are not the right antidotes to free the mind from extremes, and experience that is empty, non-dual, and non-arisen will be distorted. This is just my opinion."

The perspective offered here, rooted in the Madhyamaka ("Middle Way") school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the philosopher Nāgārjuna, is that this very dichotomy is a conceptual trap. The "answer" is not to choose a side but to deconstruct the premises upon which the question is built. The view is not that "everything is mind," nor is it that a solid, mind-independent reality exists "out there." By using the analytical tools of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda), emptiness (śūnyatā), and non-arising (anutpāda), we can arrive at a more subtle, dynamic, and experientially verifiable understanding.

1. The Central Thesis: Appearances Are Not Mind, Nor Other-Than-Mind

A clear and concise entry point into this view is captured perfectly in the article from Awakening to Reality article Appearances: not mind nor other than mind. It states:

“…there is no mind apart from appearance and no appearance apart from mind.”

This statement is the cornerstone of the entire framework. It dissolves the perceived duality between an internal "subject" (mind) and an external "object" (appearance/reality), thereby avoiding both idealism and naïve realism from the outset. Let's unpack this in detail:

• No appearance apart from mind: When we try to locate an appearance or an object—a tree, a sound, a feeling—entirely separate from the consciousness that cognizes it, we fail. An “unperceived object,” taken as something utterly divorced from any possible conditions of cognition, is an abstraction rather than something we can establish in experience. The very qualities by which an object is known—color, shape, texture, usefulness, location—are disclosed only in dependence on faculties, conditions, concepts, and cognition. Its status as an “object” is not found from its own side as an intrinsic essence; it is established dependently through bases, causes, conditions, valid cognition, worldly convention, and designation.

• No mind apart from appearance: Conversely, when we turn our attention inward to find the "mind" or "consciousness" that is doing the perceiving, we cannot locate it as a standalone entity. What is mind without something to be mindful of? It has no color, no shape, no location. We only ever find the mind in action, seamlessly fused with the content of its experience—the seeing of sights, the hearing of sounds, the thinking of thoughts.

What we actually encounter in any given moment is a single, indivisible event of "experiencing" which we conceptually and retroactively split into a "perceiver" and a "perceived." The Madhyamaka view asserts that this split is a fabrication of thought, not a reflection of fundamental reality.

2. The Engine of Analysis: Dependent Origination (Pratītyasamutpāda)

How does Madhyamaka justify this radical claim? The primary analytical tool is the principle of Dependent Origination, which states that no phenomenon exists autonomously. Everything arises in dependence upon other factors. The classic Buddhist formula is: "When this is, that is. From the arising of this, that arises."

Nāgārjuna applies this principle relentlessly to the act of perception itself. He famously analyzes the triad of the Sense Organ, the Sense Object, and the Sense Consciousness. This interdependent relationship is made explicit in his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK), or "Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way."

It is crucial to note that Nāgārjuna is extending the Buddha’s own early analysis of perception and dependent arising. MN 18, the Madhupiṇḍika Sutta, traces contact into feeling, perception, thinking, and conceptual proliferation; MN 148, the Chachakka Sutta, explicitly analyzes the perceptual triad—sense faculty, sense object, and sense consciousness—where “the meeting of the three is contact.” The broader twelve-link dependent-origination formula is especially central in the Nidāna-saṃyutta, including SN 12.15, the Kaccānagotta Sutta, where dependent origination is taught as the middle way between “all exists” and “all does not exist.” First, in MMK 3:7, Nāgārjuna establishes the dependency of consciousness:

Sanskrit: cakṣūrūpe pratītyaivam ukto vijñānasaṃbhavaḥ (MMK 3:7)

Translation: "Depending on the eye and on form, the arising of consciousness is taught."

(Note: While some explanations include "attention" (manaskāra) in this triad, the specific Sanskrit verse in MMK 3:7 does not. Attention is a key component in the Pāli suttas' analysis of contact (phassa), which forms the basis for Nāgārjuna's reasoning).

Second, in the preceding verse, MMK 3:6, Nāgārjuna generalizes this to the entire "seer-seeing-seen" complex. As Jay L. Garfield translates:

"If there is no seer apart from seeing, nor seeing apart from the seer, how could there be the seen (object) or the act of seeing when the seer is absent?" (Garfield, 1995)

These three elements—organ, object, and consciousness—are like three sticks propping one another up in a tripod. If you remove any one stick, the other two immediately fall. None of them is the independent "foundation"; their stability is their mutual, simultaneous dependence.

A modern analogy maps perfectly to this triad:

The "photo" as an event of consciousness only occurs when all three are functioning together. A dead battery ⚡ (no sensor), a lens cap ⚫ (no scene), or a processor crash 💥 (no signal generation) means the photo-event never appears. The image is not a thing that exists in the sensor, in the scene, or in the processor. It is nothing over and above that momentary, interdependent synergy.

3. The Result of Analysis: Emptiness (Śūnyatā) and Dependent Designation

This radical interdependence leads directly to the core Madhyamaka doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā). This is arguably the most misunderstood concept in all of Buddhism. Emptiness does not mean non-existence or nihilism. It means the absence of svabhāva—intrinsic, independent, self-sufficient existence.

Because every part of the triad (organ, object, consciousness) depends on the others for its very existence and definition, no single part possesses its own inherent nature. It is "empty" of being a standalone thing. This logical progression is key: Dependent Origination reveals a lack of intrinsic existence, and this lack is what is termed emptiness.

This is where Nāgārjuna's most famous verse, MMK 24:18, becomes the lynchpin of the entire philosophy, tying all the concepts together. As translated by Siderits and Katsura:

"Whatever is dependently arisen, we declare that to be emptiness;

It is a dependent designation;

Just that is the middle path." (MMK 24:18)

The second line, "It is a dependent designation" (prajñaptir upādāya), means that our words—"eye," "form," "consciousness," "mind," "world"—are convenient labels or conventions we apply to this web of interdependent processes. The label is useful for communication (this is its conventional truth), but it doesn't point to a static, self-enclosed entity.

Crucially, this does not invalidate conventional reality. The Madhyamaka view is not a denial of the world but a denial of a specific, imaginary way of being (i.e., inherent existence). By seeing that phenomena are empty of a solid, independent core, we are not left with nothing. Rather, conventional functioning is seen more clearly for what it is: not a secondary realm that merely operates beneath some higher substrate, but the very dynamic, relational, and vibrant play of appearances. If there is no substrate, what else is there besides dependently arisen, dependently designated conventionalities? Precisely because they are empty rather than self-enclosed, they can be seamless, responsive, fluid, and causally effective.

Key clarification: conventional truth is not “just valid functioning” in the sense of a lower, second-best realm. If there is no substrate, what else is there besides dependently arisen conventionalities? Precisely because they are empty, appearances can be seamless, fluid, plastic, miraculous, and causally effective. Even a quantum bit of “thingness” would make appearances impossible.

John Tan’s clarification: do not make the conventional secondary

In a later clarification, John Tan warned that some teachers are not merely using an unfortunate phrase. Their explanation can reflect a view in which presence free from conceptual elaboration is taken as the ultimate, or in which “the ultimate” is assumed to be such nonconceptual presence. They then explain conventional phenomena as things that “still perform functions in the conventional world,” as though conventionalities are merely a lower, pragmatic layer while the real aim is a higher nonconceptual presence. John Tan said this is misleading because it promotes a subtle substantialist view: it leaves some “other” standing apart from conventional existence, as though emptiness or presence were a mirror behind the reflections.

“When it is said like that, they are not implying emptiness as if phenomena are empty, there is no hierarchy. Usually practitioners expressed this way because of their experience of presence free from conceptuality. They are implying although they are conventional, they still function validly. But the higher aim should be presence free from conceptual elaborations.”

“Without substrate, what else are there? … If you say other than conventional existence, there [is] some other … then there is substrate. … It is like saying, ‘Oh, they are just reflection.’ So does the sentence imply there is a mirror beside reflection?”

—John Tan, WhatsApp clarification to Soh Wei Yu, 25 May 2026; private communication, lightly edited for grammar

His point is not to flatten the two truths into ordinary realism, but to prevent a false hierarchy. Emptiness is not a superior nonconceptual presence apart from conventionalities, and freedom from conceptual elaboration is not a hidden ultimate substance behind names, forms, sounds, and thoughts. Once the supposed “mirror” is not reified apart from reflections, the reflections themselves are seen more clearly: empty, vividly functional, and nirvāṇic in nature. This is why John Tan says one must “turn it around”: conventional functioning is not merely what remains after emptiness is realized; it is precisely because phenomena are empty that they can function, appear, respond, and display so seamlessly.

This is also why the fourfold equivalence of MMK 24:18 should not be read as a hierarchy in which dependent arising is a lower truth and emptiness is a higher substrate, nor as a hierarchy in which conventionality is a second-best realm and nonconceptual presence is the actual ultimate. Dependent arising, emptiness, dependent designation, and the Middle Way are four names for the same lack of inherent existence. Likewise, Bodhicittavivaraṇa verse 68 says that “the conventional is taught to be emptiness” and “emptiness itself is the conventional”: one does not occur without the other, just as being produced and being impermanent are not two separate realities.

4. The Ultimate Implication: Non-Arising (Anutpāda)

This leads to the most profound and subtle implication of the Madhyamaka view: non-arising (anutpāda). If a phenomenon lacks an independent essence (svabhāva) and can never be found to exist on its own, then, upon ultimate analysis, it never truly “arose” as a self-contained entity in the first place.

This does not deny the vivid, functional reality of our experience. It denies only a specific mode of existence: inherent, self-established being. Things appear, function, and have effects; this is not a secondary domain under a higher ultimate, but the display of dependent arising itself. Their ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya) is not a substrate behind them, but their emptiness of inherent existence—their “non-arisen” nature. This “pacification of all conceptual proliferation” (prapañcopaśama) is a central theme, mentioned in the homage verse of the MMK (1:1) and elaborated in its final chapters on nirvāṇa (Ch. 25).

The rainbow is the perfect analogy:

• Conventional Truth: A rainbow vividly appears in the sky. We can see it, point to it, and describe its colors. It is functionally present.

• Ultimate Truth: If we try to find the "rainbow-entity," we fail. We only see a specific, temporary conjunction of conditions: sunlight, water droplets, and a particular angle of an observer. There is no solid "thing" there. The rainbow is a vivid appearance that is simultaneously empty of being a self-existing object. It is "non-arisen."

In the same way, the world of experience—including mind and matter—is like a magical display: vividly apparent yet ultimately unfindable as a collection of solid, independent things.

5. Transcending the Extremes: A Practical Summary

With this framework in place, we can now directly address the initial dichotomy of idealism and realism and see how the Middle Way avoids both.

Even more subtle philosophical positions, like the Yogācāra school's concept of a "storehouse consciousness" (ālaya-vijñāna), are subjected to the same analysis by Madhyamaka thinkers like Candrakīrti. From a strict Madhyamaka standpoint, even if one posits such a foundational consciousness, that foundation itself must be analyzed. Upon analysis, it too would be found to be dependent on conditions for its arising and therefore empty of being an ultimate, self-sufficient ground.

Nāgārjuna: Selections from Bodhicittavivaraṇa (A Commentary on the Awakening Mind)

The following verses are from Nāgārjuna’s Bodhicittavivaraṇa / A Commentary on the Awakening Mind, translated by Thupten Jinpa. They illustrate the same Madhyamaka principles of dependent origination, emptiness, conventional functioning, and non-transfer.

Verse 59.

Starting with ignorance and ending with aging

All processes that arise from

The twelve links of dependent origination

We accept them to be like a dream and an illusion.

Verse 60.

This wheel with twelve links

Rolls along the road of cyclic existence

Outside this, there cannot be sentient beings

Experiencing the fruits of their deeds.

Verse 61.

Just as in dependence upon a mirror

A full image of one's face appears

The face did not move onto the mirror

Yet without it, there is no image [of the face].

Verse 62.

Likewise, aggregates recompose in a new existence

Yet the wise always understand

That no one is born in another existence

Nor does someone transfer to such existence.

Verse 63.

In brief, from empty phenomena

Empty phenomena arise

Agent, karma, fruits, and their enjoyer –

The conqueror taught these to be [only] conventional.

Verse 64.

Just as the sound of a drum as well as a shoot

Are produced from a collection [of factors]

We accept the external world of dependent origination

To be like a dream and an illusion.

Verse 65.

That phenomena are born from causes

Can never be inconsistent [with facts]

Since the cause is empty of cause

We understand it to be empty of origination.

Verse 66.

The non-origination of all phenomena

Is clearly taught to be emptiness

In brief, the five aggregates are denoted

By [the expression] “all phenomena.”

Verse 67.

When the [ultimate] truth is explained as it is

The conventional is not obstructed

Independent of the conventional

No [ultimate] truth can be found.

Verse 68.

The conventional is taught to be emptiness

The emptiness itself is the conventional

One does not occur without the other

Just as [being] produced and impermanent.

John Tan on Tsongkhapa's Nominalism (2020)

John Tan: That is, he [Mr. J] doesn't know how beautiful Prasangika nominalism is... ...focus on total exertion and dependent designations; it gels so perfectly and beautifully, and it has an entire view, world, or universe of its own. It integrates all without dispelling or affirming both the internal and external world (Middle Way) and thoroughly bases its entire world as names only. That is extremely beautiful, especially when you can integrate anatta, total exertion, and emptiness together. I only began to appreciate it recently when I contemplated Tsongkhapa's semantic nominalism seriously. I appreciate the two truths more and more, especially the conventional world, when seen together with the experiential insight of total exertion.

Soh Wei Yu: I see. Where can I read about Tsongkhapa's semantic nominalism?

John Tan: Actually, you can't just read about it. You must integrate it with the insight of total exertion and emptiness without resorting to non-conceptuality—just the linguistic beauty with all the constructs. Your current experiences and insights are sufficient to integrate them. The +A and -A are perfectly blended. All tastes of anatta, emptiness, and total exertion remain and gel so beautifully. The internal world and external world are bridged by being names only. No wonder Tsongkhapa doesn't need to reject the external world and doesn't need a reflexive awareness.

Summary of Key Verses & Suttas for Reference

• MMK 3:6-7: Establishes the mutual collapse of the seer/seeing/seen triad and the dependency of consciousness on the sense organ and sense object.

• MMK 24:18: Equates dependent origination with emptiness and dependent designation, defining the Middle Way.

• MMK 1:1 & Ch. 25: Points to the ultimate truth of non-arising and the pacification of conceptual proliferation (prapañcopaśama).

• Bodhicittavivaraṇa (A Commentary on the Awakening Mind): Provides analogies (mirror, dream, empty causality) to explain the relationship between conventional functioning, emptiness, and non-transfer.

• MN 18 (Madhupiṇḍika Sutta) & MN 148 (Chachakka Sutta): Key suttas from the early Pāli canon that describe the triad of perception, forming the doctrinal basis for Nāgārjuna's analysis.

• SN 12.15 (Kaccānagotta Sutta): Gives the Buddha’s early formulation of the Middle Way between “all exists” and “all does not exist,” followed by dependent origination.

• SN 22.94 (Puppha Sutta): Supports the conventional-validity principle later cited by Madhyamaka: the Buddha does not dispute what the wise in the world agree exists or does not exist.

Concluding Thought for Contemplation

Seeing is just the fleeting, interdependent meeting of eye, form, and knowing—perfectly vivid, perfectly ungraspable.

References

• Garfield, J. L. (1995). The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Oxford University Press.

• Göttingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages (GRETIL). (2010). Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, based on the edition by J. W. de Jong.

• Siderits, M., & Katsura, S. (2013). Nāgārjuna’s Middle Way: The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Wisdom Publications.

• Nāgārjuna. Bodhicittavivaraṇa / A Commentary on the Awakening Mind, translated by Thupten Jinpa.

• John Tan. WhatsApp clarification to Soh Wei Yu, 25 May 2026. Private communication; quoted/paraphrased with permission in the article body.

• SuttaCentral: MN 18, Madhupiṇḍika Sutta; MN 148, Chachakka Sutta; SN 12.15, Kaccānagotta Sutta; and SN 22.94, Puppha Sutta.

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Tsongkhapa; Dharmakīrti; Abhidharma.

• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The Hard Problem of Consciousness.

Update: