selfexperiences. This implies the inauthentic self is a product of the mind’s own
self-image. The authentic self is liberated from clinging to life and fearing
death. The inauthentic self fails to realize its own impermanent nature and
ignorantly believes that it is a self. Dōgen states that the self is authenticated
by enlightenment in a process in which one forgets the self. A person comes
to recognize that the self is impermanent, a series of selves that come into
momentary existence in the form of unified experience and successively
perish as experience changes. An authentic self is equated with Buddha-
nature, which means that the self is both permanent and impermanent and is
authenticated by enlightenment, which does not mean that the self transcends
the world. For Dōgen, the authentic self is dynamic and active, profoundly
immersed in the worldly experience, and relational. It is the other in the sense
that the self is experienced as encompassing the other as a self, which implies
that the authentic self is not isolated and aloof from the world and the other.
A different conception of the self is evident in the Advaita Vedānta
thinking of Śankara, who identifies the self as Ātman or jīva, correspond-
ing respectively to higher or lower forms of knowledge. The Ātman is
defined as self-luminous, timeless, not subject to birth and death, space-
less, a state of being, and finally unthinkable. The Ātman is non-different
from Brahman, the highest reality, whereas the jīva is the individual
existing in the world that in essence is one with the Ātman, but the jīva
is limited by adjuncts such as ignorance, which implies that it is a mere
reflection of the Ātman, just as the appearance of the sun in a pool of
water is a mere reflection and nothing real. Śankara examines the nature
of the jīva according to four states of consciousness: waking, dream,
deep sleep, and transcendental. The Ātman represents the single con-
sciousness in each of the four states of consciousness, constituting pure
undifferentiated consciousness. From the perspective of the highest real-
ity or Brahman, there is no separate entity called the jīva.
A reaction to Śankara’s non-dualistic concept of the self is made by
Rāmānuja in India with his qualified non-dualism. Rāmānuja agrees with
Śankara that the essential nature of the Ātman is knowledge. They differ
when Rāmānuja refuses to identity the self with pure consciousness,
which is always qualified and possesses specific attributes. There is also
an important relationship between the Ātman, matter, and God because
they form a unity. This means that the Ātman and body are interdepen-
dent because the body is a mode of the Ātman and sustains it, whereas
the Ātman is the ground of the body by animating, guiding, and support-
ing the body. The body and Ātman are modes of God, who animates and
supports them. Since the Ātman and body (matter) constitute the body of
God, they are teleologically orientated toward the realization of Brahman
or God. Unlike the position of Śankara, there is no absolute identity