Tara Brach - The Superpower of Mindful Witnessing

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

The Superpower of Mindful Witnessing - The capacity to witness what is happening inside us with a non-judging attention allows us to respond to life from our full intelligence and heart. This talk looks at the role of witnessing in spiritual practice, and how we can cultivate this superpower in a way that reveals the light or spirit that lives through all beings.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste. Welcome, friends. I'd like to read you something that has struck me. It's by the poet Nikki Giovanni and she says, The state of the world we live in is so depressing. And this is not because of the reality of those who run it, but because it just doesn't have to be that way.

The possibilities of life are so great and beautiful that to see less, where's the spirit down? To see less than the whole, where's the spirit down? So the antidote is to increase or open or widen our attention, to use what I think of as a superpower, which is mindful witnessing. and witnessing, just this moment, pausing and witnessing doesn't lead to indifference. Actually, we open into a very full presence that allows us to respond with creativity and

intelligence and care to our lives. It uplifts our spirit. So the talk I've chosen for this week explores how you can cultivate this superpower of mindful witnessing. And I wish you all blessings as you join me in this reflection. Welcome, friends, and thank you for tuning in. I'd like to start this talk with a story. There was a magician who was traveling through a region, he was going from town square to town square, and he'd astonished people with his magic.

He had this capacity to be able to point to things with his finger, a shovel, a book, a hat, and it would turn to gold. So the final show of the day, everyone's applauding, completely wowed by his powers, except one boy. And this boy had been carrying a stick, he'd been playing, but he stopped, and he'd been fully attentive through the whole show, but never clapped. And in the end, everyone went home except this boy, and the magician pointed to the stick and turned it to gold.

and the boy had no reaction. He didn't say anything. So the magician pointed to his shoelaces, his belt, turned them to gold. Again, the boy was just kind of noticing. And then he asked, what's wrong? You're the richest in town. Why aren't you happy? What is it you want? And the boy said, what I want is the magic finger. So what does that mean to have the magic finger? You know, we think we want the prize, you know, the money, the mate, the accomplishment, the security, maybe even the feeling of pleasure, of happiness, of ease. We fixate on the prize and we lose sight of the source of all that we cherish, which is presence, the open-hearted presence that's possible right here and now.

The gateway to that presence is the magic finger. The gateway is our capacity to mindfully witness what's going on right here in this moment. You know, on the bottom of my computer I have a sticky note. You know, I'm still very non-digital in certain ways and all that's on it is pause, the word pause. But every time I'm I remember to really stop, really pause. I'm able to witness what's going on. Maybe it's speediness or anxiety or in some way not in my body. But I can witness and then breathe for a few moments and inhabit a larger presence.

And then I just re-engage whatever I'm doing more clear, more embodied, more wholehearted. So I bring that up because witnessing this ability to really observe and sense what's happening with a non-judging awareness, with a kind awareness, this witnessing is our gateway. So we'll pause together right here at the beginning and just look at awakening the witness. and you might wherever you are, just close your eyes for a moment and let your attention go inward. And the two questions that help to activate the witness. The first is what's happening inside me right now.

So just notice what's going on in your body, whatever sensations or feelings are there, traces of thoughts. The first question is what's happening inside me. and the second is, can I let this be? Non-judging, kind presence. And as you're attending, noticing, letting be, now sense the experience of knowing you are aware. This is mindful witnessing, being aware of being aware,

aware of your own presence. And just sense how from this place, you can now choose how you re-engage when you open your eyes and listening and your intention towards presence as part of this gathering. Yeah, so feel free if you haven't already to open your eyes. In our life journey, the capacity to open our attention and mindfully witness our experience, It is our superpower. It is our magic finger. It allows us to remember what matters to see reality more clearly, more wisdom, really reconnecting

with our wise heart. Then we can respond, not react. So in the story, the boy was asking for the real gift, the real treasure, that which makes it possible to experience the gold. during, for this talk, this gathering, we will reflect together on the role of mindful witnessing and really how when you become a witness to your experience, it gives you access to great inner freedom to spiritual realization. And often when we talk about mindfulness and waking up, I use the metaphor of ocean and waves because I find it really, really useful

that when there's no witnessing awareness, we get lost in the waves. We get caught in anxious thinking and emotional reactivity. We get tumbled. We get caught in a really shrunken, limited sense of who we are. We kind of move around in a grimness or being judgmental or defended or. tight or tensing against the future, we get smaller. And this is true as individuals and also in our larger society when we're not mindful as a society, as a group of people. We get caught in the waves of greed and fear-based reactivity and we end up violating each other in our earth.

So healing comes when we reconnect with a large view with the ocean, when we witness and behold our shared humanity. A few weeks ago you might remember those who listened, I described the overview effect. It's that cognitive shift in awareness that a number of astronauts have reported during spaceflight when they're viewing the earth from outer space and this witnessing of our fragile blue-green orb that's floating in space, it just brings up so much cherishing for them and protectiveness. And it's really in the same way that in any moment that we open to a wider vantage point and witness what's happening, whether it's our society or in our personal lives, we can respond with more wisdom, more heart.

And it's not abstract. You've probably noticed if you're in conflict with someone, let's say a family member or a friend, and you remember to really look through the eyes of the mindful witness, if you look from a large view, you'll see the patterning, the dance you're in more clearly, And you'll remember what your deeper intention is and you'll speak more from the heart. You'll listen more from the heart. Or let's say you're with your child and you're impatient and in some way you kind of witness it, you witness what's going on.

Something in you will realize you need to slow down to sense what your child needs. All right, I think a lot if we're at war with ourselves, you know, you know the moment. moments when you realize and start witnessing, oh my gosh, that harsh inner judge is taken over. If you're witnessing that, you'll also sense how harmful that is and turn towards more self-kindness. So witnessing enlarges us. It helps us inhabit and live from who we really are. So I really do think of it as our superpower, as humans.

you know, the word homo sapien sapien, which is really humans knowing that we're knowing. And it's sometimes described by cognitive scientists as metacognition, a larger space of knowing. And it's very much a part of our evolving consciousness. And it takes cultivation. So that's what we're going to explore. How do we cultivate being a mindful witness? And it really starts with witnessing the transfer in at any moment when we're stuck. You know, all the different ways our attention gets caught where we believe we're separate

and threatened and not okay. It's those moments when we're really caught in our role in some rigid way and our reactivity and not remembering who we are. So one story, an unemployed biologist got a new job at the zoo. And they offered to him to dress up as a gorilla in the skin, a gorilla skin, and, you know, pretend to be a gorilla so people would come to the zoo more. People would be more engaged. And on his first day on the job, he puts on the skin and he goes into the cage.

And people are cheering him. So he starts really putting on a show. He's jumping around. He's beating his. chest and he's roaring and during one acrobatic attempt he loses his balance and he crashes into the lion cage and so he's lying there stunned and the lion roars and he's terrified and starts screaming help help you know and the lion races over to him places his paws on this guy's chest and hiss says shut up or will both lose our job so a kind of maybe not the best

illustration, but if we jack in regularly, we'll find that a lot of times during the day we're caught inside a role or an idea of ourselves that's smaller than the reality than the wholeness, the mystery of who we are. My friend and teaching colleague Anam Thubten puts it this way. He says, there's a mind-created world that we've been living in for forever. A mind-created world we've been living in forever. The world we must awaken from is the world that the mind has constructed. And this is deep. It's very revealing to start investigating this virtual world we spend so much time lost in. When we start witnessing it, we find that it's actually run by feelings, that our fears are generating worry thoughts and planning

and rehearsing. The fears are generating judgments and keeping us in a kind of problem-solving mind. Huge swaths of the day if we begin to witness, this is what we see, and that our wants are continuing to move us towards trying to find some more comfort and pleasure. And as much as we think we're making decisions or choices and that they're rational, they're actually driven by the wants and the fears. I mean, you might take a moment to scan today. Let's just witness a little bit about today. Let your attention go inward.

And just consider how much time were you lost in thoughts? maybe living inside the idea of a doing self and on your way to something else. How many times and how much of that virtual reality was there a sense of a problem to solve, something to figure out, judging, planning? And can you sense how through the day there were feelings that were in some way shaping the thoughts, anxiety, wanting something different. You might also scan and sense, were there moments of real presence of mindful witnessing what was going on?

So you were the ocean aware of the waves but not lost when your senses were awake, when you were aware of what was going on around you inside you, without judgment, just stepping back, witnessing the day, open your eyes if they were closed, if you'd like. The more were lost in our thoughts and feelings without any of the presence of that mindful witness, the more we actually miss out on what's happening around us. One mom shared this in an email, this story, and the background is that she's very much into, she and her family, into organic foods and vegetarianism. She hadn't gotten to the grocery store one day, and she was stressed and tired, so here

she is at dinner time trying to figure out what to feed her children, and thank goodness she found a frozen pizza in the freezer. So she announces, she feels guilty about it, but she announces we're going to have frozen pizza, you know, it's not homemade, it's not organic, you know, that kind of thing. Well, her son, her four-year-old son, resists. She said, I don't want frozen pizza. She stayed calm. That's what we're having.

He gets increasingly upset. Don't want frozen pizza. Don't want frozen pizza. She again tried calmly. This is all we have in the house. In her mind she's thinking he's spoiled. He doesn't understand how much time and energy it takes to cook all these homemade meals. I'm raising these entitled brats.

I'm a bad mom. know, it proliferates, takes a deep breath. This is what we're having tonight, sweetie. I'm tired. It's what we have. Finally, he looks at her with his tear-streaked face and he's, you know, he says very calmly, okay, mama, but could we at least heat it up? She really needed that magic finger, that bit of mindful witnessing to spare the family drama. But the truth is, When we're reactive, when we're lost in the waves, we're in a distorted virtual reality. We need to pause. We need that superpower.

So let's look more closely at how we shift when we're caught in the waves to becoming the ocean witnessing the waves. And as you know, if you've been with me and practicing these teachings for a while, The ground level is become mindful witnessing our thoughts, realize thoughts are happening so we can kind of step out of them some. Again, you might just reflect for a moment and when I invite you to reflect you can either close your eyes or let your gaze be downcast but check this out that if you just remind yourself of a stressful situation that happened recently, maybe you're

earlier today, yesterday, something where you got triggered. Like watching a movie, just remind yourself what was going on, what was triggering, what it was like, perhaps remembering who was there, if somebody else was there, what was being said. And now, fully become the mindful witness. Noticing this as a story going on right now in your mind, so you're witnessing the thoughts as thoughts, images, sound bites. You might even mentally whisper thoughts, thinking, thinking. There's feelings witnessing that and being aware of witnessing. Being aware of being right here now larger than the story of the stress self. When you are the witness, there's an

enlarging quality to presence and there's a clarity that you can see, I am not the thoughts. I'm not the self in the story. What you are is larger. See this, sense how clear witnessing makes it. I am not the thoughts. What I am is larger. It's this witnessing awareness. And again if you'd like to open your eyes, please do.

Seeing this is what makes witnessing a superpower, a magic finger. Seeing thoughts as thoughts. There are so many fear-based thoughts that shape our experience of life. And it's such a prison to believe those thoughts. Thoughts of our own shortcomings or what's wrong with others, chronic worry thoughts. to experience them as reality makes us very small and limited. So the moment that you move into the mindful witness and see thoughts as thoughts, you have more perspective, you can actually choose and sense, well, is that thought serving my life?

Is that thought causing more distance, more pain? mindful witness gives you the opportunity to actually see more clearly and choose what's most shaping your life. And I know for myself that it doesn't mean when I'm mindfully witnessing that I've actually stepped out fully of all the anger or hurt or fear that's going on. But there is more freedom. I notice here with my husband, been Jonathan, that if there's some tension between us and I'm having judgmental thoughts and I'm feeling angry towards him, if there's enough of a mindful witness just to see, okay, this is what's going on, I can tell myself, don't believe your thoughts, don't believe

your thoughts, don't believe your thoughts, and actually not say or do things I might later feel bad about. I'm still feeling bad, but there's enough of that witness to have some clarity and perspective. It's so helpful. The witness reminds us it's just a thought, you're not your thoughts. You don't have to believe them. So I did get an email from one man, he wrote, I'm really trying to witness my thoughts more. They've been with me since I was born.

I know the voices of my mind aren't mine. but they sound exactly like me. So we really do get hooked in thinking these thoughts are what I am, but we can train ourselves to step into an enlarged sense of presence. You might remember the Wizard of Oz. He seemed so great and terrible, the great and terrible Wizard of Oz, and he had Dorothy and her friends all trembling and then the curtain got pulled. You remember who pulled the curtain? You probably do. It was Toto, the little dog. So the idea is let your inner Toto, that witnessing presence,

pull the curtain on thoughts, you know, so that you see them as thoughts and then they don't have the power to make your life small. So the beginning of waking up, becoming the witness of thinking. Similarly, we become the mindful witness of emotions. It's such a superpower when you're caught in emotions in all those waves that are just causing suffering to be able to make that shift from being inside the waves and tumbled to resting in the ocean. You're still including the waves.

You still feel what's there, but you have that larger perspective. It releases the identification. So when we can really recognize and allow without judgment, the emotions that are there, they lose their capacity to dominate us. And there's a lot of research on this that when we become mindful of what's going on, become the mindful witness, it actually increases the activity of the prefrontal cortex and decreases the activity of the more primitive limbic brain. We have more choice. I'll give you an illustration for this and my illustration is a story about one of my assistants, Janet, who's been on the

team here for years and has given me permission of course to share. share, she knows all my stories of the trance of unworthiness. So here we were and we're on the phone and she's reporting the status of projects. This occurred about four years ago. She was juggling so much and she felt she wasn't doing justice to them and that she could be getting out so many more blog posts and doing so much more on the website and she was just falling short in her mind on many fronts and it just landed her in that sense of I'm not enough, you know, I'm really failing. And it was familiar to her. She often shared self-doubts. And I tried reminding her of all the good she was doing. Didn't make a dent. So then I just started singing, you know, I'm never enough,

I'm always failing. I'm never enough. I can't get things right. I'm I'm never enough, I'm falling short, you know, and I really put it on. At some point she joined in and of course we were laughing and the dopamine was flowing and the limbic doubts and fears backed down. She was more the entertained witness than the unworthy self. So in this example of course she had a co-witness and it really helps us to be with each other witnessing what's going on together so we don't take it to so personally and get so caught. But the principles, whether you're practicing, activating

the witness on your own or with others, are the same. When you sense you're stuck, caught in reactivity, pause, you might take a few breaths because that actually will change your biochemistry, a few long deep breaths, then ask the two questions that. activate the witness. What is happening inside me right now? And can I let this be? Witnessing is without judgment. It's simply noticing what's here. Now I've been asked, well, when we're in that mindful witness, isn't that a kind of dissociation? Isn't it kind of a dry and different observation? And I want to just say that mindful witnessing isn't removed any more than the oceans removed from the waves.

It's an enlarge presence where we feel and hear and see what's here. We're including the waves from that larger perspective. And importantly, when we get open and attentive and we're not judging, there's a natural kindness that comes through. One teacher describes it as an infectionate attention. Some like to think of mindful witnessing like a kind grandmother that's just wise and caring and really accepts what's happening in the moment, its reality in the moment. So in its fullness, attention is the purest form of love. I mean, we know this, that one another truly attends without judgment.

We feel their love. And it's the same thing with the mindful witness. When we're witnessing from that fullness, there's a deeply tender presence that really fills it. And whatever you practice gets stronger. So the more you practice becoming the mindful witness, the more it becomes a mindful witness, the more it becomes a superpower. You know, you really find that pathway very quickly to being, from being stuck in that prison of trance to reconnecting with beingness where there's more clarity,

more tenderness. And in those moments, you can then respond and not react to your world. I mean, so often, so often the regrets in our life for the times we've been caught in trance and had no access to witnessing and instead said things or acted in ways that caused harm. So as mentioned earlier, when there's conflict, the capacity just to pause somewhere in the midst of that and just notice, okay, what's happening? And can I just be with this right now? The more you can do that, the more chance you'll remember what really matters to you, that you really, really want connection and understanding more than being right,

more than defending yourself. And you'll be able to then respond in a way that's aligned. And it's helpful if you want to be able to move into that freedom of the witness to plan ahead. If there's a person you know in your life where you get triggered regularly and you go into trance, plan ahead, intend to be able to pause and breathe and notice from a larger view, okay, what are the thoughts, what are the feelings inside you. And that pause to connect with that mindful witness will give you more freedom to then engage from the best of who you are. Okay, so the last part of our reflection that I want to move through with you is the greatest misunderstanding about the superpower.

And with that, how witnessing actually becomes a portal to the deepest awakening possible. So if you explore while you're witnessing in the background what's going on, you'll sense that there's, and this is subtle, but that the witness is me. It's like the self, what I am is the witness. And it's as if there's some vague, hovering inner self residing in the body mind that's doing the witnessing, sometimes described as the ghost self. There's a profound freedom when you begin to investigate this. Like who really is witnessing?

And you might sense, you know, as you're witnessing a sense of that kind of, well, I'm witnessing. But if you really look closely, who's witnessing? What is witnessing? And if you attend without adding any thoughts, just look to see who's witnessing. See if you can really find a self, what's there? If you bring a real interest but a light touch, you can't find anything solid. You know, you just sense, well, awareness is witnessing. It's witnessing without a witness.

It's witnessing without a witness. You might listen to these words from Srinargarata, who's one of the teachers that's most shaped my understanding. He says, as you watch your mind, thoughts, sounds, feelings, you discover yourself as the watcher. Okay, this is the witness. When you stand motionless, only watching,

you discover yourself as the light behind the watcher. The light behind the watcher. The source of light is the source of knowing, of loving. That source alone is. relax in that source and that beingness and abide there. I'm going to read that again because to me it's one of the most profound teachings that can help us. As you watch your mind, the thoughts, the sounds, the feelings,

you discover yourself as the watcher. When you stand motionless, only watching, you discover yourself as the light behind the watcher. The source of light is the source of knowing of love. That source alone is. Relax in that source, in that beingness, and abide there. When we rest in that source and what we are beyond any ideas of a self, or even ideas of a witnessing self,

When we rest in that light-filled beingness, we can sense that pure formless presence is shining through all bodies, all minds. So a final story that I feel brings this alive in a very beautiful way. And this is shared by a physician, she says, it was a busy morning and an elderly man as 80s arrived to have stitches removed. He was in a hurry, he said, he had an appointment at nine. So I took his vital signs and knew it would be over an hour before we'd be able to completely move through the procedure.

I saw him looking at his watch and decided since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound and see if we could get to it more quickly. On exam, it was well healed, so I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies, and removed his sutures, redressed his wound. While taking care of his wound, I asked him if he had another doctor's appointment this morning why he was in such a hurry, and the gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife. I inquired as to her health.

He told me she had been there for a while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer's disease. As we talked, I asked if she would be upset if he was a bit late. He replied that she no longer knew who he was, that she had not recognized him in five. years now. I was surprised and asked him, and you still go every morning, even though she doesn't know who you are? He smiled as he patted my hand and said, she doesn't know me, but I still know who she is. What grace, you know, to be able to witness the spirit of another and not be confused or distracted or diluted by their temporary state. And what grace, when we get caught in the waves, to be able to remember our own spirit, to be

able to bear witness to what's going on and sense the light behind the witness, that light and love that's really our essence. What grace? So it's grace and it is a capacity we can cultivate. through the day is the possibility of pausing. So in this talk we've been looking at this is a key part of waking up, this capacity to bring mindful witnessing to what's going on anytime. It's the superpower that when we develop it, it's like the magician's finger. You know, it allows us in a daily way to have that freedom to respond and not react and to

to live from our most awake heart. In the deepest way, it's what allows us to inhabit that radiance, that light, that love, that's who we are, to really rest in the mystery of our being. So friends, we'll close with a short reflection. And I invite you wherever you are to let your attention go inward. Those two questions, what is happening inside me right now? And can I let this be? Sensing the witnessing, that kind, non-judging presence with the thoughts, the feelings, the sensations. And now bring attention to that witnessing watcher, that which is observing, aware you're aware and sensing the light behind the witness

the watcher and the source of all being in love and just relax back and rest knowing this is the truth of being beyond any story the poet Mary Oliver writes still what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. I want to believe I'm looking into the white fire of a great mystery.

I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing, that the light is everything, that it is more than the sum of each flawed blossom rising and falling. And I do. Thank you, friends, for your attention, wishing you all blessings on the path.