The Sacred Witness

A Buddhist Perspective for Meditation on the Sacred Witness
synthesized by Ariel

I have a body, but I am not my body. I can see and feel my body, and what can be seen and felt is not the true Seer. My body may be tired or anxious, but that has nothing to do with my inward Witness. I have a body, but I am not my body.

I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts. I can know my thoughts, and what can be known is not the true Knower. Thoughts come and go, but they do not affect the Witness. I have thoughts, but I am not those thoughts.

I have emotions, but I am not those emotions. I can feel and sense my emotions and what can be felt and sensed is not the true Feeler. Emotions pass through me, but do not affect my inward Witness. I have emotions but I am not my emotions.

I am what remains… a pure center of open awareness, an unmoved Witness of all these thoughts, emotions, desires and sensations.

When we begin to touch the transpersonal Sacred Witness, we begin to let go of our purely personal problems, worries, concerns. In fact, we don’t even try to solve our problems or distresses. Our only concern is to watch our particular drama, to simply and innocently be aware of it, without judging it, avoiding it, dramatizing it, working on it or resisting it. As a feeling or sensation arises, witness it. Nothing needs to be done, but if a doing arises, witness that. Abide as choiceless awareness in the midst of all. This is possible only when it is understood that none of our drama constitutes our real self, the Witness. As long as there is attachment to our distresses, there will be an effort to manipulate them. Every move we make to solve a distress simply reinforces the illusion that we are that distress. Simply hold a detached impartiality toward the distress. The state of the Witness is like a mirror. It simply reflects any sensations or thoughts that arrive without clinging to them or pushing them away, just as a mirror perfectly and impartially reflects whatever passes in front of it. To the extent that you realize that you are not your anxieties, then your anxieties no longer threaten you. Even if anxiety is present, it no longer overwhelms you because you are no longer identified with it. Thus any emotion, sensation thought, memory or experience that disturbs you is simply one with which you have identified yourself. Dis-identify with it. To witness these states is to transcend them. There is a place within you that has an inward sense if “I ness” that is not memory, thoughts, mind, body , experience, feelings, conflicts, moods, sensations. If you had a different body, you would still feel the same Iness” Your I ness” was not born with your body nor will it perish upon your death. To the extent that you contact your true self, the Witness, you simply sense an inner expansion of freedom, a release of openness, an absence of limits. The true Self is not a thing but a transparent openness or emptiness free of identification. Bondage is nothing but the mis-indentification of the Seer with all the things that can be seen. Liberation begins with the simple reversal of this mistaken view.

From the 13 Moon Mystery School • Copy it Right! Please Credit! • Through Ariel Spilsbury