If the Buddha Got Stuck_ A Handbook for Change on a Spiritual Path - Charlotte Sophia Kasl [29]
Remember, every breath, thought, word, and action is part of a hologram called life, which is within you and everything around you. When you are enjoying a breeze but not getting blown off course by the worldly winds, you become more deeply embedded in your humanity and feel an enduring calm. When we treasure life and feel awe and wonder for the essence of creation, we can step away from these external pulls and come back home to ourselves.
The shelter from the Eight Worldly Winds is mindfulness, awareness, fascination, and curiosity. It’s about paying attention to physical sensations, internal dialogues, energy levels, and emotional states. It’s about being fully engaged with whatever you are doing, deeply attuned to other people, and taking part to ease injustice and suffering in the world. It’s about finding out who you are rather than trying to “be” something. It’s about giving up the praise, gain, fame, and pleasures that lead to grasping, tension, and losing track of your true self. It’s to swim against the stream of what we’ve often been told, and to treasure your life and how it feels to relax, be touched by beauty, develop your talents, and feel your connections to others.
16. Find Your Observer, Your Timeless Friend
Discover all you are not. Body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, time, space, being and not-being . . . nothing concrete or abstract you can point out to is you. You must watch yourself continuously—particularly your mind—moment by moment, missing nothing. This witnessing is essential for the separation of the self from the not-self.
—SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ, I AM THAT
Being able to relax into awareness requires the ability to observe or witness yourself. Ultimately we realize that the observer and the observed arise and fall together, but the initial step is to develop the ability to witness or observe oneself. For example, let’s say a part of you reacts to a situation on automatic—same old upset and words—and another part notices what’s occurring. Aha, there’s that old reaction. I’m really getting upset and defensive—what is that really about? Bringing awareness to the situation creates spaciousness and the possibility for change. It’s a far different experience to say, “Wow, I’m having a big case of neediness or jealousy,” than to fall completely into the grip of neediness or jealousy as if they’re your complete identity.
The observer is loosely engaged in whatever is happening but also has a laid back feeling as she notices your breathing, the ways your body gets tight, how you get insistent or afraid, or how you want to run away from feelings. The observer also notices red flags, wiggles of doubt, and uneasiness when you are considering a major change, perhaps a new job or relationship. It gives you the keys to being wary and wise. The observer helps you experience yourself as a dynamic, changing process, not a fixed identity. This awareness takes you beyond your concrete identification with the self to appreciating the temporal, ever-changing nature of the mind, emotions, and desires.
The kindly observer or witness realizes your dance is created by your conditioning and nervous system, so instead of taking it seriously the observer watches as if it were a drama or movie: there goes my conditioned self jumping to conclusions, changing moods, making interpretations. The observer can learn to notice when you’re holding your breath, shutting down, not talking. Instead of being swamped in depression, you observe the depression as happening while realizing that your essence exists apart from the depression. Similarly, you may have an addiction, but you are not only an addiction. This doesn’t mean you ignore the depression or addiction or don’t seek