Part 1 of the 20-part Between Mind and Body series

As a child, I would find myself watching. I didn’t have language for it then. I simply noticed the way someone’s voice shifted when they were uncomfortable, the way tension appeared in a jaw or a shoulder, the way a room felt different depending on who had just walked in. Friends at school. Teachers. My parents. My sisters. Even strangers at the store.

I was less interested in what people said and more curious about what moved them.

Why does the same event create anger in one person, silence in another, and laughter in someone else? Are we reacting to what is happening, or to something happening inside of us?

I was often called shy. That word never felt quite right. I wanted to speak. I wanted to say something that mattered. But I often felt uninformed, unintelligent, as if I didn’t understand enough to contribute anything meaningful. So I stayed quiet.

But the quiet was not absence. It was observation: awareness without dialogue.

Growing up, we all lived under the same roof and shared the same circumstances, yet each of us seemed to experience a different world. The outer conditions were identical, but the inner responses were not. My sisters filled the rooms with conversation and laughter. I participated at times, but more often I filled my space with watching. I was the youngest and quiet; they were older and talkative. Introvert and extrovert under the same ceiling, seeing the same events but living them differently.

That difference stayed with me. It still does.

Even now, I sometimes wonder: what are we actually seeing when we think we are seeing the world?

One of my earliest memories of my mother is of her lighting incense and placing a small bowl of rice and water in her Buddha house. It sat on top of the dresser in my parents’ bedroom, made of the same pine wood, as if it had always belonged there. It had a few small tiers, each holding simple, meaningful objects, a small Buddha figure, a gently toned bell, tiny cups, and photographs of family and close friends who had passed. It was both a shrine and a place of connection. When I got older, I made her a new one, trying in my own way to carry forward what that space held for her.

She would then pause, ring the bell, and write in a small notebook. Always in Japanese. I couldn’t read the words, but I watched the act. The stillness. The attention. It felt like something was happening beyond what I could understand.

At the time, I didn’t think of it as anything. It was simply something she did every day.

But something about it stayed with me.

She was quiet.

I never asked what she was doing. I simply observed.

Years later, I would understand those pauses as a form of meditation. They were moments of attention. Of reflection. Of being present with something beyond the surface of the day. Without realizing it, I had been watching someone practice observation, not just watching others, but watching herself.

There are days when I take a few moments like that for myself. If I don’t, something feels slightly off. Not dramatic. Just unsettled. As if I skipped something essential. A small act of noticing that keeps me aligned.

In school, I found I could speak comfortably one-on-one. But in a group, I would retreat inward and watch. My mother once told me that teachers had asked if I might have a learning disability. She told them no, that I was simply a quiet boy.

I remember her asking me why I didn’t speak up in class. I told her I didn’t know. And I think I truly didn’t. I had no problem speaking inside my own head. There was constant dialogue there, questions, observations, reflections. But putting that into spoken words in a room full of people felt like stepping out without armor.

On the rare occasions that I did speak, it felt strange, as if the room shifted. People would look at me. Sometimes someone would say, “He speaks.” And I would return to quiet.

My mother never tried to change that about me. She would say there is nothing wrong with being quiet. That everyone is different. That being able to observe deeply is not a weakness. It is a quality. I didn’t fully understand it then, but I carried it.

I also remember walking with her in nature. She loved butterflies and would stop to watch one. Not casually, but attentively. “Look at how colorful it is,” she would say. “See how it floats, like a leaf in the wind… so beautiful.”

She wasn’t just pointing it out. She was seeing it.

Those moments felt different. Time slowed. The world sharpened.

Life moves quickly, conversations, responsibilities, noise, reactions. Observation interrupts that speed. It creates space. A pause before interpretation. A moment before reaction.

Over time, I began to notice something: what I had been doing all along was not just watching others, but learning to notice the space between what happens and how we respond. Observation, to me, feels like seeing without immediately adding meaning. It is noticing the tightening of a jaw before an argument escalates. It is sensing the shift in your own breath before anxiety takes hold. It is recognizing that two people can stand in the same room and walk away with completely different stories about what happened.

Observation does not fix everything, but it reveals. And sometimes that is enough.

Even now, I find myself watching, a conversation, a posture, a silence between words. I notice how quickly the mind wants to explain, judge, or defend. And occasionally, if I am quiet enough, I catch something subtle. The moment before the reaction. The space where choice still exists.

That space has become important to me. Maybe it always was.

Perhaps the art of observation is not about becoming more analytical or detached, but more present, more willing to see what is actually here, inside and out, without rushing to conclude.

If we shared the same room, the same event, the same words spoken, would we experience the same world? I’m not so sure. But I do know this: the more I practice observing, truly observing, the more life reveals itself in ways I might have otherwise missed.

And sometimes, simply seeing clearly is enough.