Elements

[Spiny O'Norman]

In general terms I think I agree, though I'm puzzled about how anicca and anatta apply - they sound like "natural laws".

Looking at "sabbe dhamma anatta", doesn't "dhamma" mean that all phenomena?
And with "sabbe sankhara anicca", doesn't "sankhara" mean any conditioned formation?

The Dhamma is still not making ontological claims about objective reality. The point to remember at all times is that "the world" in the Dhamma is not a discreet realist materialism, but is instead a description of phenomenological experience which is then framed by the Dhamma to facilitate liberation. To this end, we could specify "...which can be experienced" as clarifying the sabbes. If something can't be experienced, it can't lead to dukkha. Even though we know the lifespan of all stars is limited, this is a sort of anicca that isn't experienced, and therefore is not germane to the Dhamma.

Yes, I see what you mean, and "that which can be experienced" seems like a good way of thinking about it. It occured to me also that for example in the Anatta-lakkhana Sutta: The Discourse on the Not-self Characteristic ( SN 22 ), the 3 characteristics are discussed specifically in terms of the 5 aggregates, ie in terms of our experience.

Spiny

[Shonin]

... and yet 'that which is experienced' cannot but include what we experience/think of as material reality.

Keeping the emphasis phenomenological is not a matter of limiting the phenomena included in some way. It's a matter of dropping ontological thinking about it. Our entire world is itself 'that which is experienced'.