The Watcher

The following is quoted from Chogyam Trungpa: Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, page 73.

The whole point is that, if you have any idea of relationship - I am experiencing this, I am doing this - then "I" and "this" are very strong personalities, equally. Somehow there will be a conflict between "I" and "this". It is rather like saying that "this" is the mother and "I" the father. With two such polar extremes involved you are bound to give birth to something.

So the whole idea is to let "this" not be there, and then "I" will not be there. Or else, "I" is not there, therefore "this" is not there. It is not a matter of telling it to yourself, but of feeling it, a real experience. You must take away the watcher, the observer of the two extremes. Once the watcher is removed, then the whole structure falls apart. The dichotomy remains in existence only so long as there is an observer to keep the whole picture together.

You must remove the watcher and the very complicated bureaucracy he creates to insure that nothing is missed by central headquarters. Once we take away the watcher, there is a tremendous amount of space, because he and the bureaucracy take up so much room. If we eliminate the filter of "I" and "other", then the space becomes sharp and precise and intelligent. Space contains the tremendous precision of being able to work with the situations in it. One does not really need the "watcher" or "observer" at all.

When the watcher disappears, the notion of higher and lower levels does not apply, so there is no longer any inclination to struggle, attempting to get higher. Then you just are where you are.

You do not have to regard the watcher as a villian. Once you begin to understand that the purpose of meditation is not to get higher but to be present here, then the watcher is not efficient enough to perform that function, and it automatically falls away. The basic quality of the watcher is to try to be extremely efficient and active. But total awareness is something you already have, so ambitious or so called "efficient" attempts to be aware are self-defeating. As the watcher beings to realize that it is irrelevant, it falls away.