Svasaṃvedana
In Buddhist philosophy, svasaṃvedana is a term which refers to the reflexive nature of consciousness, or the awareness of being aware. It was initially a theory of cognition held by the Mahāsaṃghika and Sautrāntika schools while the Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika school argued against it.
The idea was famously defended by the Indian philosopher Dignāga, and is an important doctrinal term in Indian Mahāyāna thought and Tibetan Buddhism. It is also often translated as self-cognition or self-apperception, and by Malcolm Smith as "one's own vidyā."
Mahāsaṃghika school
According to Zhihua Yao, the theory was first presented by the Mahāsāṃghika school. Their view was preserved in the Sarvāstivāda compendium of Abhidharma called the Mahāvibhāṣa and states:It is the nature of awareness and so forth to apprehend, thus awareness can apprehend itself as well as others. This is like a lamp that can illuminate itself and others owing to its nature of luminosity.
Jan Westerhoff notes that the Mahāsāṃghikas accepted the doctrine of the natural luminosity of the mind and connects this with svasaṃvedana, "such natural luminosity making it possible that consciousness does not just apprehend other things, but can also apprehend itself."
Sarvāstivāda school
Sarvāstivāda sources which discuss self-cognition mainly do so in order to refute the idea that a mind moment can know itself in that moment. These include the Jñānaprasthāna and Mahāvibhāṣa. However that does not mean the Sarvastivadins reject all theories of self cognition, they developed their own theory which argued that mind moments know themselves only reflexively in regards to the previous mind moments. As Zhihua Yao states, "in other words, the mind knows itself through a reflection of the past mind". The Sarvāstivādins use their metaphysical theory of the real existence of the past, present and future to allow for a present mind to take a past mind as itself.Sautrāntika school
Sautrāntika authors also discussed the theory. It was extensively covered by Harivarman, the author of the Tattvasiddhi-Śāstra, and shows that he was in a dialogue with both Sarvastivada and Mahāsaṃghika views. Harivarman's view argues against the Mahāsamghika's simultaneous model of self-cognition and instead argues that self-cognition is only seen in the course of successive moments of cognition. That is, it involves multiple mental processes which Harivarman considers as happening in the "present continuum" and is not a case of a single mind moment knowing itself but is a case of the mind grasping the "image" of itself as it is fading away. This is also part of his account of how memory works.Dignāga
The Buddhist philosopher Dignāga also defended a theory of svasaṃvedana drawing on Sautrāntika and Yogācāra influences. For Dignāga, svasaṃvedana is a kind of perception which is an "internal awareness of mental consciousness" and his theory of perception also entails that it is non-conceptual. He asserts that svasaṃvedana is a valid means to knowledge, just as sense-perception is. Dignāga gives three reasons for why cognition can grasp an object and itself.- Without a self-reflexive nature, there would be no difference between a) cognition of the object, and b) awareness of the cognition of the object.
- If the cognition only grasped itself, the content of an earlier cognition would be gone when a later cognition takes place.
- Memory proves a self-reflexive nature of cognition because one is able to remember both the object and one's former cognition of it.
Dharmakīrti
Yogācāra-Madhyamaka school
summarizes Dignāga's and Dharmakīrti's arguments for svasaṃvedana in his Tattvasaṃgraha. He also discusses two additional features of svasaṃvedana.- Self-awareness is not determined by other cognitions
- Self-awareness is a distinctive feature of sentience
Soteriological and epistemic aspects
According to Yao, the doctrine of self-cognition evolved out of a soteriological context in early materials. He points out that for the Mahāsāṃghika, soteriological and epistemological senses of the doctrine were closely linked, and when Sarvāstivādins rejected the Mahāsāṃghika, they also discussed self-cognition in the soteriological context of omniscience. Moreover, the Sautrāntikas referred to yogic practice when discussing their view that the mental consciousness is self-aware, and within early Yogācāra as well, the understanding of self-cognition was broad and included the sense of self-realization. However, after Dignāga, the doctrine developed in the context of an epistemic inquiry in which the soteriological and epistemological senses were clearly distinguished.While Yao believes that it is important to maintain a technical distinction between the soteriological concept of "self-realization" and the more epistemological "self-cognition", he points out that in Chinese sources zi zheng 自證 can be used to translate both terms, and that "his ambiguity reflects a more complicated relationship, rather than a clear-cut distinction between the two concepts." Yao also observes that Yogācāra-Madhyamikas such as Śāntarakṣita and his disciple Kamalaśīla attempted a return to more soteriological concerns in their presentation of self-cognition, understanding it less as an epistemic process and more as "the very nature of consciousness." As Kamalaśīla states in his commentary on Śāntarakṣita's Tattvasaṃgraha:
When Cognition is said to be 'self-cognisant', it is not meant that it is the apprehender or cogniser of itself; what is meant is that it shines,—becomes manifested,—by itself,—by its very nature,—just like the Light diffused in the atmosphere.
Yao explains, "by rejecting the articulated epistemological formulations, they have returned to a Mahāsāṃghika position, according to which self-cognition is more simple, fundamental and soteriologically oriented." The Yogācāra-Madhyamaka synthesis was in keeping with the Nirākāravāda position on self-cognition. On the other hand, Sākāravāda thinkers such as Dharmakīrti, Prajñākaragupta and Jñānaśrīmitra exemplified a Sautrāntika-Yogācāra synthesis which aligned with the Sautrāntika tendency to articulate self-cognition within a more epistemological framework.
In Tibetan Buddhism
Svasaṃvedana is at the root of a major doctrinal disagreement in Indian Mahayana Buddhism. While defended by the Yogācāra thinkers such as Dharmakīrti and the eclectic Śāntarakṣita, it was attacked by Prasaṅgika Madhyamika thinkers such as Candrakīrti and Śāntideva. Since in Madhyamaka thought all dharmas are empty of inherent essence, they argued that consciousness could not be an inherently reflexive ultimate reality since that would mean it was self validating and therefore not characterized by emptiness.In Tibetan Buddhism there are various competing views regarding svasaṃvedana.
In the Nyingma school's Dzogchen tradition, svasaṃvedana is often called 'the very nature of mind' and metaphorically referred to as 'luminosity' or 'clear light'. A common Tibetan metaphor for this reflexivity is that of a lamp in a dark room which in the act of illuminating objects in the room also illuminates itself. Dzogchen meditative practices aim to bring the mind to direct realization of this luminous nature. In Dzogchen svasaṃvedana is seen as the primordial substratum or ground of mind.
Following Je Tsongkhapa's interpretation of the Prasaṅgika Madhyamaka view, the Gelug school completely denies both the conventional and the ultimate existence of reflexive awareness. This is one of Tsongkhapa's "eight difficult points" that distinguish the Prasaṅgika view from others. The Nyingma philosopher Jamgon Ju Mipham Gyatso defended the conventional existence of reflexive awareness as per the Madhyamaka two truths doctrine. According to Mipham, the Prasaṅgika critique of reflexive awareness only applied to its ultimate inherent reality and not its conventional status.
Mipham gives a number of absurd consequences that would follow if the conventional existence of svasaṃvedana were rejected. First, rejecting svasaṃvedana would mean absurdly that one's own consciousness would be hidden to itself. Since one's own consciousness would not be known directly, one would have to rely on inference to know the state of one's own mind in any given moment. This argument draws on a threefold distinction made by Dignāga and Dharmakīrti between: evident objects which can be known by direct perception, hidden objects which must be known by inference, and very hidden objects which can only be known by the authority of the Buddha. Moreover, it follows from this that there would be no difference between the manner in which one knows one's own mind and the way in which one knows the mind of another person. As Williams explains, "just as one has to infer the existence of other minds, so one would have to infer the existence of one's own mind. Absurdly, one would know one's own mind in just the same way as one knows of the minds of other sentient beings." This would mean one would not be able to prove for oneself that one has a mind of one’s own. Finally, if one's mind were hidden to itself, one could have no knowledge of cognitive referents either, and this would amount to a kind of annihilation of the "transactional conventions of awareness."
In East Asian Buddhism
According to Zhihua Yao, Chinese developments in the doctrine of self-cognition can be divided into three phases: the old Yogācāra in China, the new Yogācāra of Xuanzang and Kuiji, and contemporary Yogācāra studies beginning at the start of the twentieth-century. Yao observes that the old and new Yogācāra in China correspond respectively to Nirākāravāda and Sākāravāda views in India. According to the Nirākāravāda, consciousness is without different parts or divisions. Thus, self-cognition is reflexive and not involved with subjective and objective aspects of consciousness. The Nirākāravāda position, according to which subject and object are illusory, is represented in the East Asian śāstra, the Awakening of Faith. On the other hand, the new Yogācārins Xuanzang and Kuiji defended the Sākāravāda view of Dharmapāla. According to their view, the various parts or divisions of consciousness are real.According to the Huayan patriarch Fazang, self-cognition is the original karmic appearance which causes the delusive world of samsāra with all its suffering. In this, Fazang differed from certain Yogācāra views, such as that of Dignāga, according to which self-cognition is an effect of consciousness' subjective aspect perceiving its objective aspect. Fazang's view corresponds rather to that of the Awakening of Faith for which karmic appearance, being a state in which the mind is aware only of itself, is the cause of both the subjective aspect of consciousness as well as the illusory objective world. As Zhihua Yao explains, according to this view, karmic appearance, or self-cognition, "is not contributed by an external agency because the arising or awareness is inherent to the mind or reality itself."
The Korean commentator on the Awakening of Faith, Taehyeon, argued that in addition to the five kinds of manas enumerated in the text, there should be added another: svajātilakṣaṇa, or "genuine appearance," which he borrows from the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra. For Taehyeon, genuine appearance is to be regarded as the first manas, as it is unconditioned and not dependent on any other manas. Since it possesses the nature of illumination, genuine appearance is thus the basis of the other five types of mentation. Regarding self-cognition, Taehyeon states that it refers to both genuine and karmic appearance, corresponding to his first and second manas respectively.
According to the Huayan patriarch and Chan master Guifeng Zongmi, the essence of the true mind is awareness or knowing. Zongmi takes the true nature to be a "spiritual Knowing that never darkens," describing mind as "aware in and of itself," or "spontaneously Knowing". For Zongmi, knowing or awareness is thus a "direct manifestation of the very essence itself". Zongmi also explains that the true mind has two types of functioning: one original and intrinsic, the other conditioned and responsive. Jenny Hung understands Zongmi’s intrinsic functioning of the true mind to refer to "reflexive awareness in and of itself," while the responsive function is "reflexive awareness with content." Zongmi gives the analogy of a bright mirror to illustrate their relationship: where the responsive function is likened to the appearance in response to conditions of various reflected images, the intrinsic function is likened to the mirror's constant brightness itself. He says, "The reflections appear is face to face with objective supports. They appear in a thousand varieties, but the brightness is an intrinsically constant brightness. The brightness is just one flavor."
In Chan sources one can also find the term 自照, zizhao, or self-illumination. For example, the Hongzhi Chanshi Guanglu of Chan master Hongzhi Zhengjue, who famously promoted the practice of silent illumination, contains the phrase 本光自照, "the inherent light illuminates itself." Zizhao appears in earlier Chan works as well, such as the Xin Ming, attributed to Niutou Farong :
Bodhi exists originally
It has no need of being preserved
Afflictions have no intrinsic existence
They do not need to be eradicated
Numinous knowing is self-illuminated
The myriad dharmas return to Thusness
There is no return, no receiving
Cut off contemplation, forget preservation
See also the well-known Xinxin Ming, attributed to the third Chan Patriarch Sengcan though likely a product of the Oxhead School, which flourished during the Tang dynasty:
Nothing remains
Nothing is harboured in memory
Void, clear, self-illumining
The heart-strength does not struggle
It is not the place of calculated thinking
Difficult for understanding and sentiment to fathom
In the Dharma realm of true Suchness
There is no other, no self
The Japanese Sōtō Zen master Menzan Zuihō comments in his Jijuyū-Zanmai that this means that "the light of the Self shines brightly," saying that it is "similar to the light of a jewel illuminating the jewel itself." As such, there is no need to engage in mental struggle.