Witness Meditation (Part 1)

During this practice, into taking the seat as the witness, the listener begins to disidentify with all the impermanent thoughts, images, emotions, desires, and roles that we carry through life and shift ideas and perception to a conscious witness state of perceiving the answer to the endless quest of self-discovery into a dialogue of "Who am I?"

Transcript

Welcome to the Journey Inward.

This is Nadine.

Today I'm going to share with you Part 1 of the Witness Meditation.

This meditation will help you develop a Witness Consciousness.

When we are in the seat as the Witness,

We're observing the turnings of our thoughts,

Emotions,

The state of our body,

The roles we play,

Our desires,

All that sometimes we can get caught up in identifying with as being us.

And when we shift that and we witness,

We begin to notice the ways in which we are identifying and separate all of those roles and emotions,

All of the images and the self-talk we tell ourselves about who we are with an objective point of view as the Witness where we just notice what is.

And this will lead us into a deeper dialogue that we can continue to contemplate which is,

Who am I?

Who am I?

So let's begin with Part 1.

Please allow yourself to have a seat as the meditator today.

A seat in this moment.

Feet on the earth,

Hands possibly resting in your lap,

Shoulders back,

Relaxed,

Chest open.

Roll your shoulders a few times,

And I like to roll them back to emphasize the openness across the chest,

Creating space for the breath to move across the chest,

Downward and fill the abdominal cavity.

This may create an awareness for you of opening.

Where do you need to soften and open so that the breath can flow through you today.

Allow the first few moments of finding your seat to be forming a connection with your breath.

Noticing the breath as it moves through the nasal passage on its journey downward,

Opening,

Expanding,

And allow there to be a letting go with the exhale,

A release.

The in-breath just follows,

Looking at you.

The in-breath just follows,

And the control of the need to force breathing to be released,

And let the natural breath just flow in and out.

Let the vehicle of the breath guide you on this journey into your body.

As though the breath had eyes seeing into the physical container of what is you.

Noticing your body,

The image that you perceive,

I have a body,

But I am not my body.

Repeat that with me,

Silently or aloud,

I have a body,

But I am not my body.

Scanning your feet,

Your legs,

Your hips,

The shape of the curves of your torso,

Chest,

Abdomen,

Buttocks,

I have a body,

But I am not my body.

Noticing the breath guide you on this journey,

Noticing the shape of your arms,

Your hands,

The image of your face,

Any expression you're holding,

Your eyes,

Your smile,

I have a body,

But I am not my body.

We're often familiar with our image of who we are based on how we look,

How we used to look,

How we want to look in the future,

And we notice these patterns and fluctuations as our mind may have began self-talk about what we want or desire versus what is.

Your body is a container.

I have a body,

But who I am is not my body.

I want you to notice any thoughts or emotions that just arose.

We want to be aware of the stories and the self-talk that we start to hear during our meditation process.

Notice what happened with your mind.

I have thoughts,

But I am not my thoughts.

Maybe notice any negative self-talk,

Positive self-talk.

I have thoughts,

But I am not my thoughts.

Take a moment to contemplate your thinking mind,

The way your mind perceives and interprets information,

Your learning mind.

We have a wonderful learning mind.

We have challenges each of us with different forms of learning or skills,

And we may have thoughts about what we learn and how we learn,

But we are not our thoughts.

I have thoughts,

But I am not my thoughts.

And so we learn about our thinking mind and our patterns of thinking and what we think about and we notice,

But we don't need to identify who we are with our thoughts.

I have thoughts just like clouds passing in the sky,

Thoughts passing through my mind,

But I am not my thoughts.

Exhale.

We think,

We may notice the roles that we play in the world,

How we identify.

If I asked you,

Who are you,

Allow that question to settle.

Who are you?

What is your archetype?

What roles do you play?

By archetype and roles,

The teacher,

The father,

The child,

The mother,

The grandmother,

The miracle worker,

The artist,

The lover,

The dreamer.

What are your roles?

What are your roles?

We each have roles to play in the world.

We have roles in which we contribute some that we are better at and we really are exceeding and maybe really deeply emerged in certain roles during our time.

We deeply emerged in certain roles during different times of our life,

Times of the day,

And then we have roles that we play at different times of the day.

And I have roles to play in the world,

But I am not these roles.

I have roles to play in the world,

But I am not these roles.

And so who am I?

Notice any emotions that have arisen so far.

Perhaps emotions and stories that you just link to your roles when our mind begins going down.

Any kind of a story or a memory or a hope for the future,

An emotion might become attached.

And the light clouds and thoughts emotions are like clouds in the sky.

And if I mention the word mother to you,

An emotion might pass through you.

But you know that emotion doesn't stay with you,

It's going to move through you.

And a new emotion merges in.

We each have had a teacher and I might suggest the word teacher and you might notice what emotion follows.

A smile might cross over your face or a frown or a story and it passes through you.

These emotions come and go.

I have emotions,

But I am not my emotions.

I have emotions,

But I am not my emotions.

Notice if you can release identity attached to emotions and roles and thoughts.

Identity attached to the body and how you look.

And we may notice desires that have just come up through this.

We each have desires that we dream of and long for.

I have desires.

But I am not my desires.

I have a body.

But I am not my body.

Just see your body.

And yourself kind of taking this outside perspective and looking at yourself.

The impermanence of this container.

The fluctuating state of your body.

The wellness,

The shape.

And the purpose here is to accept all of these parts of you.

But to realize they are only parts of you.

This is not who you are.

This is all impermanent.

Your truth who you are does not change.

And as we say these phrases again attempt to just experience this moment of recognizing the impermanence of all of this.

And see yourself observing without identifying as that is you.

This can be so freeing.

We make mistakes and we have a past and we have memories and emotions and bodies.

But that is not who we are.

I have emotions but I am not my emotions.

I have thoughts but I am not my thoughts.

I have desires but I am not my desires.

Each day I have rules to play in the world.

Rules that I played in my past.

That maybe I am not proud of.

And rules that I wish I had played or want to play in my future.

But I am none of these rules.

And so as the witness begin to take the awareness of this meditation into a contemplative experience of living and noticing noticing the self-talk and the judgement and the identity about yourself and about others.

We believe so much about who we are and who someone else is by the rules the emotions that are provoked the images and thoughts that we gather but who am I?

I am I and you are you.

And there is a oneness that moves through this universe that connects us to something greater,

A divine energy a universal great spirit.

And I am all of these things and I am none of them.

There are so many directions we could take.

This is only part one.

Let a gentle smile rest over your face.

I hope this meditation has sparked and inspired you with the magic and possibility of accepting all that you are and everything that you are not.

And when we accept ourselves and begin to see ourselves through the new light of awareness we see everyone and everything around us through a new lens.

Find your breath and meet that breath and allow that breath to carry you into this day into the beauty that surrounds you.

And may the light that shines within you bow as you bring your hands to your heart.

May the light that shines within you meet the light that's shining within me to meet you.

And may you find that light surrounding you in this day and in all that you encounter.

Namaste.

Reviews

A great “not me, not mine” variation. Basic teaching for true freedom.