Disentangling Consciousness from the Self: A Buddhist Contribution to the Mind Sciences

Abstract

ReflectionsI come to the study of consciousness and the self through my training as a Buddhist monk and scholar, who has learned about the mind and the self from Tibetan teachers, the meditations they taught, and the voluminous lit er a ture of this tradition.It was a welcome surprise to realize that the insights that I gained through my studies and practice could be of use in the scientific study of consciousness, not just as objects to be investigated but as sources of insights and philosophical analy sis that can inform scientific research. OverviewIn recent years, a lot of attention has been paid to the pos si ble contribution of contemplative practices to the understanding of consciousness.My claim here is that Buddhist traditions can not only provide outstanding prac ti tion ers of meditation but also help researchers to understand conceptually what they are trying to study.One of the areas in which Buddhism can make a clear conceptual contribution is the question of the self.In many writings concerning consciousness, one often notices a conflation between consciousness and the self.This conflation, I believe, is very unfortunate as it leads to confusing some of the central issues surrounding consciousness and the self.My belief is that Buddhism can help clear away this confusion by providing an analy sis of the self as a complex construction that needs to be disentangled and analyzed carefully.Buddhism has a long tradition of such analyses, and con temporary mind-science discussions can greatly benefit from learning about this tradition.To make my case, 1 I first explore, from a slightly unusual angle, the question of the self from a Buddhist perspective.Instead of adopting a metaphysical approach and analyzing whether there is a self as it is often traditionally understood, I take a phenomenological approach to explore what our senses of self are.In doing so, I offer a simple three-fold typology that can be used easily and yields impor tant conclusions.Distinguishing minimal, core, and extended senses of self provides an understanding of what Buddhists mean when they speak of no-self and underlines the complexities of self-construction.