Self-Awareness ( rang rig ) and Nondual Presence: Tibetan Mahāmudrā and a Christian-Adjacent Correlation
Buddhist-Christian Studies January 1, 2026 Matthew Z. Vale
Consciousness is intrinsically and nontransitively self-aware—a nondual self-presence that is the simple awareness underlying all experience. This view is shared by the Tibetan Mahāmudrā tradition of the Kagyü school and by Daniel Helminiak’s Christian-adjacent psychology. Both traditions describe contemplative training as a process of deepening awareness of this nondual self-presence, moving from awareness of the superficial nondual presence that makes ordinary intentional contents available to a more profound sense of a limitless, primordial ground. Helminiak’s account provides a basic understanding of consciousness and a contemplative psychology that can mediate Christian theological reception of Mahāmudrā and other traditions centered on nondual awareness.