Luminosity, Subjectivity, and Temporality: An Examination of Buddhist and Advaita Views of Consciousness (original) (raw)

A familiar account of the debate between Buddhists and the brahmanical schools over the nature and existence of the self: the brahmanical schools accept the existence of the tman (the substantial self), while the Buddhists reject the tman, adopting a reductionist or irrealist account of persons. Thus while the Buddhists are similar to Hume, Locke, and Parfit, the tmavadins are, though diverse, basically Cartesian in their approach to the self. Yet, as a number of scholars have pointed out, this view of the debates on the nature of the self is far too simplistic. Indeed, as Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad (2011) argues, there are (at least) two distinct debates going on. The first debate concerns the nature of the empirical person (pudgala) and the ego-sense (ahakra), whether the person (or ego) is constructed or ontologically fundamental, as well as questions of synchronic and diachronic personal identity. The second debate concerns the existence and nature of an 'impersonal subjectivity' which may constitute the (formal) ground of empirical personhood. In this debate questions such as the reflexivity, unity, and continuity of consciousness are emphasised. My concern here is with second type of debate over the nature of consciousness and its relation to tman. In particular, I want to examine the similarities and differences between the Advaitin notion of tman as pure consciousness, or sheer reflexive subjectivity and the Buddhist notion – found in some Yogcra, Yogcra-Madhyamaka, and tathgatagarbha texts and well developed in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition – that the deep nature of consciousness is non-dual reflexive awareness. Both traditions, I will argue, recognise the empirical and the transcendental aspects of consciousness, and both link the inherent reflexivity or luminosity of consciousness to its transcendental aspect. So, have the Buddhists smuggled in the tman through the back door? Or have the Advaitins so separated the tman (as pure consciousness) from the first-person perspective of the individual self that they have become proponents of no-self in all but name? To try to get a better grip on the distinction between these two views, I will discuss akara's critique of Buddhist theories of mind, paying special attention to his argument that recognition (pratyabhijñ) requires a robust notion of the diachronic unity of consciousness. Finally, drawing on ntarakita's account of luminous consciousness and Husserl's discussion of the complex temporality of consciousness, I will argue that a Buddhist view, properly modified, has the resources to respond to the Advaita critique. The view of consciousness as ever-present self-luminous awareness does not require a commitment to even the Advaitin's attenuated notion of tman.