The Witness (Pure Consciousness)

Imagine you are sitting in a movie theater. Your thoughts and feelings are the movie playing on the big screen, but you are the person sitting in the chair watching it. Even if the movie is scary or sad, the person in the chair is actually safe and quiet. You are not the movie; you are the one watching the movie. This helps you feel calm because you know that thoughts come and go like pictures on a screen. When you realize this, you can choose which movies to pay attention to.

You are not the movie — you are the one watching the movie. You have had a thousand thoughts today. Worried ones. Happy ones. Angry ones. Strange ones. But you noticed all of them. Which means you are not any of them. You are the thing that noticed. The screen does not care what movie plays on it. The screen is not damaged by horror films. The screen is not improved by comedies. The screen just holds whatever appears and lets it go when it ends. You are the screen. The thoughts are the movie. And the screen was there before the movie started. And the screen will be there after the credits roll. You have never been your thoughts. You have always been the space in which your thoughts appear.

The Hard Problem of Consciousness: while the brain processes data, there is a fundamental qualia — subjective experience — that cannot be explained by biological material alone. You have never been your thoughts. You have always been the space in which your thoughts appear.

SOUND: The steady hum of a fan that never changes: the background tone of the awareness that was there before the thoughts arrived.

SMELL: Petrichor — rain on dry pavement: the scent of something that exists whether or not anyone names it.

TASTE: A single drop of cool plain water: the taste of nothing — which is the taste of everything before flavor.

TOUCH: Your feet pressing firmly against the solid ground: the body reminding the witness that it has a seat.

SIGHT: A single unmoving dot on a blank wall: the simplest proof that seeing and thinking are not the same thing.

BODY: The weight of your body in your chair right now: gravity holding the witness in place while the movie plays.

Music: Caledonia by Dougie Maclean

Music: Bullet With Butterfly Wings (Remastered 2012) by The Smashing Pumpkins

Music: Wounded by Third Eye Blind

Music: Waterfalls by TLC

Music: Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis

Witness Consciousness Hard Problem of Consciousness Mindfulness