Finding The Neutral Witness Through the Senses (When Your Mind Won’t Settle)

After playing around with moving in and out of various states of the neutral witness and pure awareness, I’ve found a few reliable ways back to it when the mind won’t relax and the conditions aren’t ideal.

What I call the neutral witness can also be called pure awareness. There seems to be debatable differences between the two states. They can feel like different depths of the same recognition, though the witness can carry a subtle sense of being separate from what’s observed. Both can also be present at once. This state allows experience to be held without getting pulled into dramas and stresses. Being present is another way of describing this and again, there are varying depths of presence, each leading to further equanimity and a wider lens to see through.

Things still happen. Emotions are still felt. A sense that things are going wrong can still exist within the field of awareness, depending on how deeply rooted we find ourselves. It’s like putting a drop of food colouring into a small glass versus a big jug. In a larger more expanded state, the same emotion spreads out and feels less overwhelming. Everything appears inside a wide, quiet, neutral space that doesn’t need to react, judge or run away from anything. We can rest in awareness while staying connected to our body and daily life.

Recognizing this state can be difficult at first, especially when the mind won't relax. When I can’t recognize this space by relaxing the thinking mind, I use my senses. Feeling, hearing, and sensing the space, quiet, stillness. This helps loosen identification with the thinking mind, helping us dissolve into the field, enabling us to access more clarity.

There are days when trying to rest as awareness through the mind doesn’t work well. If my mind is hyper or anxious, trying to force stillness can add pressure. Instead of fighting it, I just choose a different doorway.

If tuning into space or silence makes you feel more anxious, floaty, or numb, that’s your system signaling that you need to anchor. This state can feel ungrounding at first so it’s sometimes better to ease your way into it, especially for those of us who are easily ungrounded.

Feeling Into The Texture of Space and Stillness

If resting as awareness feels too abstract, this is a more embodied way in.

Attune to the texture of silence, space, and stillness already present in the room and in the body. Over time, space begins to have a distinct texture. Feel into the texture of space, silence, stillness.

Let attention rest on:

• The sense of space in the room (the volume, the openness, the texture)

• The quiet background under all the activity

• The stillness that holds both the body and thoughts

Feel this as one continuous field. As I do this, that familiar feel of neutral, quiet, relaxed, with thoughts in the background emerges. This isn’t about escaping our experience, it’s about including everything inside a wider, kinder space.

Hearing The Sound of Silence

Another doorway is through listening. Listen not just to sounds, but to the silence that holds them. Notice the obvious sounds first, voices, traffic, birds. Then listen deeper for the quiet bed of silence underneath it all. The open space where each sound appears and disappears. You might notice a subtle hum of quiet behind everything that becomes more noticeable as you relax.

Over time, the silence can feel louder than the noise. Resting in the sound of silence makes that same sense awareness more obvious. It helps us untangle from the egoic self.

Other Doorways Like Seeing, Touch, Smell, Taste

Every sense can serve as a doorway.

• Seeing: Soften your gaze and take in the whole visual field at once. Instead of fixating on one object, sense the space that holds everything seen.

• Touch: Feel the weight of the body, the points of contact with floor or chair, the air on the skin. Sense the body and room as one field inside a larger stillness.

• Smell and taste: Notice how each scent or taste appears, lingers, and fades inside the same quiet background.

Becoming Familiar With the Feel of Awareness

Over time, the flavour of awareness itself becomes familiar. Some days awareness feels effortlessly anchored and deeply present and other days and moments it feels surface level. The point isn’t to hold onto a particular depth, but to recognize that this state is available through many doorways.

You don’t have to wait for the mind to settle to recognize this quiet, spacious awareness. You can feel, hear, and sense your way into it through the space, silence, and stillness already here. The more familiar you become with how awareness feels, the easier it is to recognize, even on messy, loud, very human days. It’s quietly present and waiting to be noticed, through all senses.