While walking to the yoga hall just now, my attention was drawn to a friend of mine, Serena, taking photos of some birds from her second-storey balcony. I didn't stand there staring at her for long, but what struck me was that she had no idea I was watching her. It was quite a beautiful moment, and it made me think about meditation. I was like that aspect of observation in meditation, that watches our direct experience as it comes it through the sense doors. In Buddhism, there are six sense doors, including the mind, so the watcher is basically the consciousness that arises to meet the incoming stimuli. In other words, it is what acknowledges life as we know it.
After soaking up the symbolism of the moment, I turned to walk away, and that's when the reality of the situation really became clear. There, off to the side, standing under a tree, was an Indian man that I had never seen before, and wouldn't you know it, he was staring right at me! Just when I thought I was being clever, watching someone without them knowing it, I came to find that someone was one-up on me. For all I know, he was aware that I was watching my friend, and aware that she was photographing birds that were sitting in the tree that he happened to be standing under.
Who was this guy?
When we connect with the watcher during meditation, we become aware of some aspect of our experience. This is what we call mindfulness. We can be mindful of sounds, sights, tastes, touch, smells, thoughts, and feelings. But is this the whole picture? Is there another aspect of our consciousness? Is there any other way we can experience being alive in this moment?
How many objects can we be mindful of simultaneously?
If nothing else, it's a place to become curious about...
But what happens when we turns this capacity to observe back on itself? What happens when we "watch the watcher?"
Just like looking in the mirror, watching the watcher allows us to see what lies behind these eyes. Ajahn Chah, a great 20th century Buddhist monk from the Thai Forest Tradition, said, "Be with the one who knows." It's just like the Indian man who was standing under the tree. He was the only one who really knew what was going on. I thought I knew, but what I found was that I didn't know, he knew. I knew one thing that was going on, but he knew everything. Even though my level of perception was valid, that what I saw was true, there was a whole other level that I wasn't aware of.
Let's use an example in the body. If you haven't explored your consciousness before, it might be difficult, but bear with me here. Bring your attention to your right hand. Be your hand. Zoom your experience in to what it is to be a hand. Let's call it hand-ness. Feel the direct connection to the sensations that are present. The weight, the touch of the air on the skin, the temperature, any vibrations, numbness, anything. Just sense whatever you can about your right hand. Now, zoom out, but stay connected with your hand. This time, connect with the capacity to notice the particular sensations present in your hand. Can you feel the difference?
In the first example, there is just the hand, nothing else exists. This is you watching the hand. In the second example, there is only knowing. But this time, the experience isn't limited to just the hand, is it? The one who knows, knows everything. This means that it also knows everything else that is happening at any given point in time. Think of it like a wide-angled lens. If you are taking a group photo, and want to squeeze everyone into the shot, you might need to have a wide-angled lens on your camera. Or, if you have a zoom, camera, you'd just zoom out. The other aspect of the watcher is that it isn't affected by what it sees. It is in this respect that it is also known as the "unmoved observer." It's effectively taking a step back from experience, as far back as you can, until your personality is no longer filtering the incoming stimuli. You are now getting a direct feed.
When we are zoomed in, the mind is working. We perceive something, and then we have an opinion about it. While it's not necessarily so that while we observe, judgments will be there, it is likely that they will. On the other hand, the observer does not judge, it only perceives. What happens is that the observer witnesses something and then the mind comes in with its judgment. There's nothing wrong with this, especially if we are also keen to watching the judgment, and dis-identifying with them, but since judgments parade around as being the voice of "us," this can be quite difficult.
When our observations become self-aware, we can rest as this silent-witness, and keep a safe distance between us and our judgments. In Tibetan Buddhism, this is called Awareness of Awareness. Awareness is always happening, but are you aware of your awareness? If not, you may find that you are lost in the thoughts and judgments of the conditioned mind.
Awareness itself is not bound to conditions. It is the same now as it was when you were born. Unlike your personality, which is constantly changing, awareness is who and what your really are. If you want to truly know yourself, your true nature, you can practice watching the watcher. Don't try to understand it intellectually, it's not possible. If you think you understand, then I hate to say it, but you don't. It must be experienced.
This practice is somewhat difficult. Sometimes, I feel like I am aware of my awareness, but most of the time, my awareness carries on without me knowing it. It's that moment when time stops, when life feels like a lucid dream, like when you look over and realize the strange man standing under a tree has been watching you the entire time. It's that next layer of perception, it's taking a step back from the way we normally see the world. Normally, we filter all incoming stimuli and therefore we can only see things subjectively. So long as we view the world like this, reality of life remains a mystery, and we might as well be dreaming.
It might not be possible or appropriate to remain in this state of hyper-awareness at all times. Since awareness is always at work, whether we are connected to it or not, the urgency isn't really there. In other words, we don't need to feel like we have to stay connected. There is nothing we have to do. Instead, if we can remind ourselves to watch the watcher from time to time, we will start to see the difference between reality as-we-know-it and reality as-it-is.
What is the relationship between the perceived and our perception?
If we are zoomed in too far, and not careful about avoiding entanglement in the mind's interpretation of whatever we are perceiving, we lose all hope of objectivity. This is what we call someone who has their head up their ass. It leads to narrow-mindedness, intolerance, ignorance, impatience, judgment, anger, and discontentedness. Seeing the bigger picture allows us to be free from our own subjectivity, at least from time to time. It gives us a chance to take a break from what we call "our self." Don't you get sick of a person you spend too much uninterrupted time with?
In the same way, we are all sick of ourselves, we all yearn to take a break . That's why we seek distraction; a good book, the internet, a nice meal, a vacation, but what we find is that we don't need to anything to find this much-needed relief except to turn our awareness back in on itself. The invitation is to watch your body, mind, and personality in action as if you had no connection to them whatsoever. Pretend it is someone with whom you've never met before.
You don't own your awareness, it's impersonal. What that means is that awareness is universal, it exists unchanged in all forms of life. This is the Infinite, Eternal, Unbound Source of all creation, and you have unlimited access to it!
Excited yet?
May all beings come to see that who and what they really are is beyond the body, mind, and personality.
May all beings see themselves as Infinite, Eternal, and Unbound.
May all beings connect with their true-nature by turning their awareness back in on itself, by "watching the watcher."
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