When I listen to this passage, I feel both relieved and unsettled. Relieved because Ken names something I’ve intuited for a long time: that external feedback about the effects of practice—how I seem to others, how “nice” or “settled” I appear—doesn’t actually tell me very much about what’s going on inside. And unsettled because it takes away a reference point. If praise about improved behaviour isn’t a reliable guide, then there’s nowhere to hide.
The idea of the “reliable witness” also cuts through my tendency to feel pleased or even smug when someone remarks that I’m calmer, less reactive, or easier to live with. It’s not that feedback from others has no value, but it can quietly pull attention away from what’s actually happening inside. Behaviour can change for all sorts of reasons. It can even improve while something inside is quietly tightening, avoiding, or accumulating unspoken regret.
I appreciate the simplicity of Kontrül’s mind training instruction: “When you are clear inside, without regret or shame about your actions, that is the reliable witness.” It doesn’t depend on comparison or approval. It points to a kind of inner alignment—a sense that nothing needs to be hidden or justified. I recognise how rare that clarity can be, and how honest it asks me to be.
Hearing Ken describe this, I’m reminded that practice isn’t about becoming a better person in the eyes of others. It’s about developing the capacity to know directly whether I’m at ease with what I do and how I live. The reliable witness speaks softly, but unmistakably.
From A Trackless Path 13
Ken: Let's start with a simple question. How many of you have expectations about your practice? What it should be like, and how you should be in the world as a result of this practice? Well, one of the more relieving and one of the more troubling instructions in The Great Path of Awakening is:
Rely on the principal witness.
It could be "judge" too. And the commentary says, as you practice mind training, people may come to you and say, "Oh, you're a much nicer person than you used to be. You're much easier to get along with. You must be making great progress in your practice." And so you think, "Oh, I'm getting somewhere." But that's regarded in mind training as an unreliable witness because people don't know what's actually going on inside you. All they're doing is basing it on behavior.
And this certainly has happened to me. In the first three-year retreat I got a note from my wife, who was in the women's retreat saying, "From what the other guys are saying you're making great progress in your practice because you're much easier to live with now." And this was further confirmed many years later when I was in Vancouver in the early 70s helping to establish a center there. I was visiting with some old friends, and we were chatting in the kitchen. She came up, put her arm around me and said, "I think I can say this now, Ken. You really were an asshole." [Laughter]
So, what do you do with that? That's the unreliable witness.And Kontrul goes on in his commentary to say... I'm going to experiment with getting rid of the word mind for a while and see what that's like.
When you are clear inside and not experiencing regrets or shame about your actions, that's the reliable witness.
Student: Could you repeat that?
Ken: When you are clear inside and have no regrets or shame about your actions, that's the reliable witness.
What he's saying is the reliable witness is mind itself.