A simple, but powerful meditation practice is to “Let the Subject become the Object.”
Let’s look at what this means.
If you are looking at tree, then you are the subject and the tree is the object. This is the way you usually experience the world: the subject is the perceiver, the object is the perceived.
What you perceive falls into two general categories: experiences inside of you and experiences outside of you. Experiences outside of you consists primarily of sights and sounds; those inside of you consists of thoughts, emotions, sensations and desires.
Ordinarily the vast majority of your attention is focused outside of you—on the sights and sounds of the objective world. The internal world of thoughts and emotions is often ignored or discounted in deference to the “real world” outside of you.
To practice the meditation of “Letting the Subject become the Object” you would consider every experience to be an objective, “not-me” experience. Those experiences usually considered to be part of yourself become objects of awareness—no different than the sights and sounds of the external world.
The subject of your observation then becomes awareness itself. This subject is considered the witness to all experience. This witness has no judgement of right or wrong, good or bad; it does not analyze, fix or try to solve problems. The witness does not attempt to control or coerce; it does not compare or evaluate.
The spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti has said, "The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”
If you become aware of the witness judging or analyzing, then that tells you that it is no longer the witness but that it has morphed into the judge. If that happens then turn the witness toward the judge itself; observe the nature of the judgments arising; witness the thoughts, emotions, sensations, desires related to the judge. The witness does all of this without judgment.
Until the self is observed without prejudice you tend to see the world (and other people) as a distorted reflection of your own unseen self rather than that which is real; the unconscious parts of self will be unwittingly projected onto others. This can create huge problems in your relationships— and it is a primary cause of suffering.
When perception is completely undistorted you will see the world with new eyes!
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”
Wm Blake