Svasaṃvedana

svasaṃvedana. (T. rang rig; C. zizheng/zijue 自證/自覺) is translated as self-cognizing awareness, self-cognizing cosciousness, self awareness, etc. A non-conceptual awareness which only apprehends internal phenomena i.e. a consciousness.

The Berzin glossary states:

(1) The cognitive faculty within a cognition, asserted in the Sautrantika and Chittamatra tenet systems, that takes as its cognitive object the consciousness within the cognition that it is part of. It also cognizes the validity or invalidity of the cognition that it is part of, and accounts for the ability to recall the cognition.

(2) In the non-Gelug schools, this cognitive faculty becomes reflexive deep awareness -- that part of an arya's nonconceptual cognition of emptiness that cognizes the two truths of that nonconceptual cognition.

The Princeton Dictionary states:

In Buddhist epistemology, svasaṃvedana is that part of consciousness which, during a conscious act of seeing, hearing, thinking, and so on, apprehends not the external sensory object but the knowing consciousness itself. For example, when a visual consciousness (cakṣurvijñāna) apprehends a blue color, there is a simultaneous svasaṃvedana that apprehends the cakṣurvijñāna; it is directed at the consciousness, and explains not only how a person knows that he knows, but also how a person can later remember what he saw or heard, and so on.

According to the Princeton Dictionary, "In tantric literature, svasaṃvedana has a less technical sense of a profound and innate knowledge or awareness."

See also

• Buddha-nature
• Nature of mind
• Rangtong-Shentong
• Rigpa
• Svasaṃvedanā pratyakṣa
• Vijñāna

Further reading

• Robert E. Buswell Jr., Donald S. Lopez Jr., The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (Princeton: 2014), s.v. svasaṃvedana
• Svasaṃvedana, Wikipedia