In the Darkness, Light

More Musings from a seated posture

Jul 06, 2025

The Orchestra in the Head, Part 4

The Light in the Dark

So, the question is, how to deal with squatters? Most people, when they get the importance of this, want techniques. Ways to get rid of what they don’t like in their minds. Most people have tried things like positive thinking, mindfulness, and therapy—sometimes they help, and sometimes they don’t. But underneath is always the same assumption: something is wrong and needs to be corrected.

That question misses where the fundamental shift needs to happen.

This morning, before sunrise, I sat in the beautiful early morning quiet and returned to something I’ve come to trust. It doesn’t have a name, at least not one that can be spoken aloud. It existed before language and will exist for an eternity after languages cease to be spoken. I can describe it as still, quiet, outside of time, perhaps beyond the beyond.

But my saying those words instantly triggers the part of us that thinks it can understand, and more words come. “It’s like this, it’s like that.” But no. It’s not like anything other than what it is. There’s something like wisdom in it, certainly, for it is the source of all wisdom. It is just present and spacious in a way that can’t be measured. As Lao Tzu wrote in the Tao Teh Ching: “The way that can be named is not the eternal way.”

In that kind of seeing, the squatters I’d written about over the last two weeks weren’t being handled or improved. They simply stopped being in the same way the morning mist ceases to be when the sun warms it into non-existence.

Light doesn’t push darkness out. It doesn’t need to. The darkness was only there because of the absence of light. It doesn’t have substance. You can’t scoop it up or carry it. It doesn’t leave behind traces. It disappears by being seen through.

That’s what these mental squatters are like. When you’re inside them, they feel dense and complicated. But when awareness settles, when it’s not tangled up in thought, they fall into the nothing that they always were.

Most of what passes for mental work is often a kind of fighting. Label the problem. Trace its roots. Find the right method to fix it. We’ve been taught to approach the mind as if it were broken machinery.

But I’ve seen something quieter and more basic. You don’t need to win against the mind. You just need to see what’s actually here.

Recently, I was looping through a familiar worry. A decision had to be made, and I was unable to determine the most beneficial direction to take. The usual voices showed up. One warned of disaster. One wanted to make everyone happy. One wouldn’t move forward without guarantees. Another said that I needed help. These voices in my head felt like actual presences, each with its own pull, its own ideas, its own opinions.

I used to try to respond with positive thoughts, techniques to calm myself, or analysis to find the source of the confusion. All of that carries the assumption that the worry is real and needs to be worked through.

This time, I just watched. Quietly. Not trying to shift anything. Just letting awareness be there without getting involved. Like turning on a light in a room and standing still to see what’s there.

And then the looping was gone. Just absent, as though the problem had become so weightless it seemed that it never really existed. And in reality, it was always and only a figment of my imagination.

It is not that difficult either. It happens on its own when the noise falls away, like a field clearing after the wind dies down. There’s a kind of balance that returns when nothing’s being pushed around and forced.

And that way of holding attention isn’t something you build or refine. It’s what you already are, under the swirl of thought and feeling. It is not something that must be achieved; it just needs to be allowed and then gently and persistently receive attention.

Most of the time, we are absorbed in the surface of experience. Thoughts, feelings, inner chatter. This has such a heavy reality that it can be like watching a movie and forgetting the theater exists. Or dreaming without knowing it’s a dream.

That’s the space where the squatters survive. When attention narrows, they seem personal and permanent. But when awareness effortlessly opens, they lose their grip, as in reality, they never existed.

One thing stands out for me today as I write this: the quality of this seeing is more like the slow arrival of morning. Gentle. Indifferent to outcome. It doesn’t care what it finds in its curiosity, a curiosity held for the pure enjoyment of being curious. And in that gentleness, things relax and unwind.

There’s no fight. No inner negotiation. No breakthrough. Just quiet seeing, and in that, the tensions that seemed so real fall back into silence.

This is something I’ve come to trust. I need not chase after better thoughts or new and improved versions of myself. I just need to return to seeing all of it. And what he sees isn’t wounded, doesn’t need fixing, and isn’t trying to get anywhere.

The squatters will still visit. That’s fine. But they can’t hold anything when there’s no one holding on and nothing for them to hold onto.

None of this means life becomes frictionless. Decisions still matter. Relationships still need tending. Work still asks for clarity and care. However, it can all shift from steadiness rather than from the motivations of a fractured self trying to become whole by using methods that can never lead to wholeness.

Light doesn’t argue with darkness. It just shows you there’s nothing there.

Thank you for reading.

Please take a moment to hit the “like” button below. The more “likes” this gets, the more people will have a chance to see it.

If something in these words stirred something in you, I’d love to hear it. These conversations matter more than ever. Or if there is a topic you would like me to cover, you can reply here:

The Medicine of Your Life - notes from behind the Mesa

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?