The Observer

The Buddhist concept of the observer is related to the higher brain that humans have and animals do not. We have the capability of conceptualizing ourselves within a situation as simply one player on the stage, rather than seeing everything as focused on us. It takes a child a while to develop the realization that he is like the other people around them, and that other people experience him in a similar way to how he experiences them.

This ability to objectivize ourselves is critical to getting to know ourselves. Without it, we learn about the world in terms of how it makes us feel. Suppose Joe is someone I don't like. When I see Joe, what I experience is a feeling of dislike. I don't experience myself having a feeling - I experience Joe being in my presence and simultaneously an uncomfortable feeling. Since Joe and the feeling arrive and leave at the same time, I naturally assign Joe as the cause of the feeling.

It is only when I see myself as an independent feeling being that I can conceptualize that the feeling comes from my reaction to Joe, not from Joe himself. In other words, I am an actor in this drama - Joe is not the only person on stage. And it is possible that I am the cause of the feeling because I bring up the feeling whenever Joe is present.

This critical shift in our thinking allows us to separate the world from our reaction to it. When we realize that the reaction is within us, we then have the possibility of changing the world by changing ourselves. Without that realization, we are a helpless victim of the people and events that enter and leave our life without our control.