We point often to Witnessing your life as it takes
place as the "Real" experience of life. The Inner
Witness does this every moment your are alive,
but the Inner Chatterer disrupts awareness
and has your mind rehashing your past or
imagining your future or some other non-reality.
Mindfulness is the 2500 year old technique to place
you in the Witness posture. Here is one of the best
descriptions about it. Enjoy!
Source: Buddhism. Majjhima Nikaya i.55-63,
Satipatthana Sutta

There is this one way, monks, for the purification
of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and misery,
for the destruction of pain and grief,
for winning the right path, for the attainment of
Nibb-ana, namely the Four Arousings of Mindfulness.
What are these four?

Here a monk lives contemplating the body in the body,
ardent, clearly conscious and mindful, having overcome,
in this world, covetousness and dejection; he lives
contemplating feelings in feelings, ardent, clearly
conscious and mindful, having overcome, in this world,
covetousness and dejection; he lives contemplating
consciousness in consciousness, ardent,
clearly conscious and mindful, having overcome,
in this world, covetousness and dejection; he lives
contemplating mental objects in mental objects, ardent,
clearly conscious and mindful, having overcome in this
world, covetousness and dejection.

And how, monks, does a monk live contemplating body
in the body? Here a monk, having gone to the forest,
sits down cross-legged keeping his body erect and setting up
mindfulness in front of him. Mindful he breathes in,
mindful he breathes out. Breathing in long, he knows,
"I breathe in long." Breathing out long, he knows,
"I breathe out long." Breathing in short,
he knows, "I breathe in short." Breathing out short,
he knows, "I breathe out short." "Experiencing the
whole body I shall breathe out," thus he trains himself....

And further, a monk knows when he is going,
"I am going"; he knows when he is standing, "I am standing";
he knows when he is sitting, "I am
sitting"; he knows when he is lying down, "I am
lying down"; or just as the body is disposed so he knows it....

And further, a monk reflects on this very body
enveloped by the skin and full of manifold impurity
from the soles up and from the crown of the
head down, thinking, "There are in this body: hair
of the head, hair of the body, nails, teeth, skin,
flesh, sinews, bones, marrow, kidney, heart,
liver, membranes, spleen, lungs, bowels, intestines,
mesentery, feces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat,
fat, saliva, mucus, synovic fluid,
urine."...

And further, if a monk sees a body dead for one day,
or two or three, swollen, discolored, decomposing,
thrown aside in the cemetery, he applies this
perception to his own body, "Truly, this body of mine,
too, is of the same nature, it will become like that
and will not escape it."...

And how, monks, does a monk live contemplating feelings
in feelings? Here a monk when experiencing a pleasant
feeling knows, "I experience a pleasant feeling"; when
experiencing a painful feeling knows, "I experience a
painful feeling"; when experiencing a feeling that is
neither pleasant nor painful knows, "I experience a
neither pleasant nor painful feeling."...

And how does a monk live contemplating consciousness
in consciousness? Here, monks, a monk knows the
consciousness with craving as with craving; the
consciousness without craving as without craving; the
consciousness with anger as with anger; the consciousness
without anger as without anger; the consciousness with
ignorance as with ignorance; the consciousness without
ignorance as without ignorance... the freed state of
consciousness as the freed state; the unfreed state
of consciousness as the unfreed....

And how does a monk live contemplating mental objects
in mental objects? Here, monks, a monk lives contemplating
mental objects in the mental objects of the five hindrances.
When sense desire is present, a monk knows, "There is
sense desire in me", or when sense desire is not present
he knows, "There is no sense desire in me." He knows
how the arising of the non-arisen sense desire comes
to be; he knows how the abandoning of the arisen
sense-desire comes to be; he knows how the non-arising
in the future of the abandoned sense desire comes to be.
When anger is present, he knows... when sloth and torpor
is present, he knows... when restlessness and worry are
present, he knows... when doubt is present, he knows...

Truly, monks, whoever practices these Four Settings
up of Mindfulness for seven years, then one of two results
may be expected by him: highest knowledge here and now or,
if some remainder of clinging is yet present,
the state of non-returning.

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