The witness
Turn your attention from the thoughts to the one who is watching them. Thoughts and moods change; the one aware of them doesn't.
Key takeaways
- An ancient image shows two birds in one tree: one eats the fruit, sweet and bitter; the other only watches. Advaita Vedanta calls the watcher sakshi, the witness.
- Noting labels what passes, and naming a story spots a pattern. The witness does something else: it turns to the one who is aware, and rests there.
- Ask "who is noticing this?" The thought is something you see. You are the one seeing it, and that part of you is not anxious.
Two birds
One of the oldest images in Indian thought appears in the Rig Veda and again in the Mundaka Upanishad, composed more than two thousand years ago.
“Two birds, inseparable friends, cling to the same tree. One of them eats the sweet fruit; the other looks on without eating.”
The first bird hops from branch to branch, delighted by one fruit and upset by the next. The second sits still and watches. Teachers have long read the two birds as two sides of a person: the part caught up in experience, and the part that is aware of it.
In Advaita Vedanta, the school of Hindu philosophy taught by Shankara, that awareness is called sakshi, the witness. Thoughts, feelings and moods pass in front of it like weather across the sky. The witness sees all of it, and isn't changed by any of it. Your true self, Advaita says, is the witness, not the weather.
Turning around
Several practices put space between you and a thought. They do it in different ways:
- Noting (Buddhism) labels what passes, moment by moment: "thinking", "worrying", "hearing". Attention stays on what passes.
- Name the story (ACT) spots a familiar pattern: "there's the not-good-enough story again". Attention is on the thought, seen as a thought.
- The witness turns attention the other way, onto the one who is noticing. Not "what is this thought?", but "who is aware of it?"
When you look for the watcher, you don't find another thought. You find something more like open space, the room the thoughts happen in. The worry is still there, but you are no longer standing inside it. You can't be the thing you are looking at.
You don't have to accept the philosophy behind it for this to help. Even a few seconds of resting as the one who notices, rather than the one who worries, tends to loosen a thought's grip.
Question 1 of 2
Which of these is the witness?
How to do it
A minute or two
- Let the thoughts come
Don't stop them or change them. Let them pass like the first bird's fruit.
- Ask
"Who is aware of this?" Don't answer with words. Look.
- Notice what you find
Not another thought, but the awareness itself: still, open, not anxious. It doesn't need anything from the thought.
- Rest there
When you find yourself back inside a thought, which you will, ask again. Each time counts.
Ravi's night
Ravi can't sleep before his sister's wedding, where he's giving the main speech. He lies in bed going through it: "What if I forget the middle? What if the joke falls flat? I'm going to ruin her day." He tries labeling ("worrying, worrying"), but it starts to feel like just another voice in the crowd.
Question 2 of 2
Sources and further reading
- Mundaka Upanishad 3.1.1; also Rig Veda 1.164.20. Many translations; e.g. Eknath Easwaran, The Upanishads (2007), Nilgiri Press.
Finish the lesson
0 of 2 questions done. Answer the rest to finish.