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- 經典中對心路過程（Vithi）的詳細描述
Yes—there is a suggestive analogy. But I would hesitate at “therefore the self.” More precisely:
Bhavaṅga-citta may be compared to a default background condition of mind, while the DMN is one important neural system through which a narrative, autobiographical self is continually reconstructed.
They overlap around continuity, but they are not identical.
Why the comparison works
Bhavaṅga is the “life-continuum”: when an active perceptual or cognitive sequence ends, consciousness returns to a relatively object-poor background flow. The DMN, similarly, becomes prominent when attention is not fully occupied by an externally directed task and participates in autobiographical memory, imagining the future, self-referential thought, and spontaneous internal mentation.
So one could draw this analogy:
\text{active cognitive process}
\longleftrightarrow
\text{task-positive processing}
\text{bhavaṅga background}
\longleftrightarrow
\text{default-mode activity}
Both challenge the naïve idea that when one is “doing nothing,” the mind is actually inactive. Beneath focal cognition, something continues.
But bhavaṅga is not quite the DMN
There are several important differences.
First, bhavaṅga is a kind of consciousness, defined within an Abhidhamma taxonomy of mind-moments. The DMN is a distributed anatomical-functional network involving regions such as the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus, and angular gyrus. One is a phenomenological-doctrinal category; the other is a neuroscientific construct.
Second, bhavaṅga is described as relatively passive and noncognitive. It is not ordinarily engaged in autobiographical rumination, imagining, self-evaluation, or narrative construction. The DMN, by contrast, frequently supports exactly those complex forms of internally generated cognition. It is not merely a blank interval between perceptions.
Third, bhavaṅga continues during dreamless sleep in the classical account, whereas ordinary DMN organization and connectivity change substantially across sleep states. Thus the correspondence is not one-to-one.
Is the DMN “the self”?
The DMN is probably better regarded as a major apparatus of self-modeling, not the self itself.
It contributes especially to:
- autobiographical continuity;
- remembering “my” past;
- imagining “my” future;
- evaluating events in relation to oneself;
- integrating experience into an idiosyncratic world-model.
Recent interpretations describe it not merely as an inward-looking network but as a dynamic sense-making system that integrates prior knowledge with ongoing situations.
But many dimensions of self depend upon systems beyond the DMN:
- bodily and interoceptive self: insula, somatosensory and autonomic systems;
- perspectival or minimal self: sensorimotor integration;
- agency: motor prediction and executive networks;
- social self: DMN interacting with mentalizing and affective systems;
- attentional self-regulation: salience and frontoparietal networks.
Hence:
\mathrm{DMN} \neq \mathrm{self}
but perhaps:
\mathrm{DMN}
\approx
\text{autobiographical and narrative self-modeling}
The Buddhist complication
Calling bhavaṅga “the self” would be precisely what Theravāda wants to prevent. Bhavaṅga explains why the person appears continuous, but it remains:
- conditioned;
- momentary;
- karmically produced;
- changing from moment to moment;
- not controllable as “mine”;
- therefore not ātman.
Its function is almost paradoxical:
Bhavaṅga explains the continuity that gives rise to the experience of being a self, without itself being a self.
This may also be a productive way of interpreting the DMN. The DMN need not be a neurological homunculus or Cartesian ego. Rather, its activity helps to manufacture continuity by linking memories, anticipated futures, relationships, values, and present situations.
In Buddhist language:
The DMN may be less the neural location of the self than part of the neural machinery of selfing.
Bhavaṅga, DMN, and ālaya-vijñāna
I would arrange the analogy this way:
|
Buddhist concept |
Closest contemporary analogy |
|
Bhava廜ga-citta |
background continuity or default condition of consciousness |
|
laya-vij簽na |
latent generative model, dispositional memory, accumulated priors |
|
Manas |
reflexive appropriation: 𦭛his is me, this is mine |
|
DMN |
autobiographical, social and temporally extended self-modeling |
Thus the DMN may actually resemble not bhavaṅga alone, but an interaction among bhavaṅga, ālaya-vijñāna and manas:
- bhavaṅga supplies continuity;
- ālaya supplies sedimented history and dispositions;
- manas appropriates the stream as “I”;
- the DMN constructs an autobiographical world in which that “I” appears to persist.
In your vocabulary, I would say:
Bhavaṅga is the stream’s not-stopping; the DMN is the stream telling itself whose stream it is.
And the Buddhist reply would be: the telling is real as an event, but the owner thereby narrated into existence need not be.
