Ritual

The Observer Aware Of Itself As A State Of Mind

When you become the observer you will notice that your thoughts arise all by themselves. You will notice that your mind thinks all by itself and you can sit there and listen to it and watch the images it projects. In the beginning of noticing you will often have reaction to the chatter of internal dialog. There might be thoughts wishing it would quiet down, or that you aren’t meditating very well, or confused as to why they don’t stop. At this stage you are having too many reactions to really be the observer yet, but you are a step closer to that state of mind. After a while you move on to observe the reactions as well as the initial impulses. This is another state of mind for extending your mindfulness practice.

One of the byproducts of this process is that you realize that you can sit and listen without responding to the initial impulses, or the reactions to those impulses and thoughts. When you are doing this you realize yourself as something separate from these impulses and the mind that is doing the thinking, talking, and reacting. You are calm and conscious of your self while around you the mind is busy with chatter and impulses to do something. You become aware that your mind is separate from you. With this awareness you also become aware that you are separate from your mind. This can be both a very interesting new sense of self, and uncomfortably unsettling at the same time. The unsettling part will soon pass.

As you practice becoming the observer you will notice more subtle things that affect you.  In the beginning you might notice you are procrastinating. Over time you will notice the different things you are doing to procrastinate. With progress you will notice how when you think of starting on a task that your mind jumps to checking your email, or calling a friend.  With more practice you might observe a kind of automatic impulse down your arm that moves your hand to your computer or phone. You will become aware that you really barely thought about doing something and your body was already in the action. You may begin to wonder what is making this happen and why does it happen?  This kind of curiosity will help with motivation to practice more and diversify your mindfulness practices. In this state of mind there can be a sense of curiosity about all these subtle things happening. You might have a state of wonder, or watchfulness while watching your mind, as if you were waiting at a coffee shop for someone you are interested in but have only talked on the phone.