The Self-Awareness of Tathāgatagarbha (Part 1)

The reason for stating to ordinary sentient beings that the Tathāgatagarbha lacks self-verifying self-awareness (svasaṃvedana) is twofold. First, it is because ordinary beings and bodhisattvas below the first bhūmi cannot observe the self-verifying self-awareness of the Tathāgatagarbha, hence it is not said that the Tathāgatagarbha possesses self-verifying self-awareness. Second, the content of the Tathāgatagarbha's self-verifying self-awareness differs from that of the self-verifying self-awareness of consciousness, and it also differs from that of other deluded consciousnesses. The Tathāgatagarbha is devoid of self, unaware of any self, yet it can know which dharmas have been activated. Those already activated are not repeated, while those not yet completed continue to be activated, and it knows how to activate them.

The self-verifying self-awareness pertaining to the selfless nature of the Tathāgatagarbha is difficult to articulate clearly in language. It is as challenging to explain to ordinary sentient beings as the Tathāgatagarbha's discriminative and cognitive natures. Does the Tathāgatagarbha perceive the six dusts (objects of the senses)? Indeed it does; otherwise, how could it manifest, transform, and sustain the six dusts? However, this discriminative function of the eighth consciousness does not perceive specific meanings like the six consciousnesses do. After perceiving the six dusts, it does not know what it has perceived. The Tathāgatagarbha perceives the six dusts, yet knows nothing about them, and then continues its perception and activation. The mechanical mode of perception of the Tathāgatagarbha is like a computer processing a program. A computer can recognize fonts and output them, yet it does not know what the fonts represent or their meaning, whereas consciousness knows what the fonts are and their significance.

Similarly, the Tathāgatagarbha's perception is like a washing machine recognizing instructions to wash clothes, yet the washing machine does not understand the specific meaning or purpose of the instructions, whereas consciousness does. The Tathāgatagarbha's functioning, perception, and cognition resemble the mindlessness of a robot: it performs work without knowing what exactly it has done, whereas consciousness knows.