Sit With It: A New Paradigm for Living

by Xavier Alexander Vazquez

We can create a vastly different world than we currently inhabit, but our power is being squandered.

We unfairly turn the people, objects, and situations in our lives into sources of pleasure, and cede our personal power to compulsive behavior.

Our fundamental perspectives on life are learned during infancy, inherited from the society that raises us. As we grow into adulthood, these perspectives and opinions are reinforced via our own observations of the world around us. We fail to realize that these deeply ingrained assumptions about how life operates have crafted the society we are observing. It’s a self-reinforcing loop.

As information passes along from generation to generation, some basic thoughts and assumptions about the world become so widespread that we mistakenly understand them to be indisputable truth. Common sense may be common, but it is quite likely to be based on inherited assumptions and biases that we are unaware of.

that what I call “my mind” has three primary components. They interact with one another to create what I refer to as my conscious human experience.

The Intellect refers to a very specific mechanism within the Trinity of Mind. It is a storage and retrieval system for knowledge: the thoughts, ideas, concepts, and assumptions that we have collected throughout our lives.

Rain: You cannot control when a thought will pop up in your awareness. Similarly, you cannot control if a raindrop will fall from the sky and land on your head. Thoughts happen to you. Thoughts are separate from what you consider as yourself. This is why people often say quite appropriately, “The thought occurred to me.”

A loyal fetching dog: The Intellect is an extremely loyal companion who is here to serve you. It aims to please by helping you solve problems. This loyal dog fetches you thoughts, ideas, and concepts until a problem is solved. It is constantly fetching thoughts for you, seemingly at all hours, attempting to solve your problem.

Unfortunately, The Intellect is so loyal and dedicated that it can help us right into an abyss. It has no capability for understanding whether a fetched thought, concept, or idea will solve the problem at hand. It only knows to fetch the closest approximation to a solution from what has been collected throughout our life, and then present it. In that respect, it’s not too different from an online search engine.

The Body speaks to your personal truth more reliably than The Intellect does.

If The Intellect and The Body are not you, it begs the question: “Who are you?” The Observer is the aspect of the mind that what we habitually call ‘I.’ When I say that a thought is “fetched for me” and when I say that “I felt something” in The Body, I am acknowledging that there is a separate Observer who experiences the activities of both The Intellect and The Body.

The Observer is not only the watcher, but also the decider. As The Observer, you choose to accept or not accept the suggestions fetched by The Intellect. You can either acknowledge or attempt to avoid the sensations coming in via The Body. The Observer seems to be the only aspect of The Trinity of Mind that exhibits free will. The Intellect fetches on its own accord, but its content is programmed by its environment. The Body responds to stimulus on its own accord, but is programmed by its physical structure. As The Observer, you are able to make a binary Yes or No choice when presented with data coming from the other two aspects of mind.

Whenever we avoid our physiological state of distress, we move upwards towards the pleasure state. This movement represents the clinging to the people, objects, and situations in our lives in order to maintain comfort.

What we call psychological fear begins right at the crest of the wave just as it begins to turn downwards, away from pleasure and towards distress. The uncertainty of whether or not pleasure will continue creates a sense of danger. The Intellect attempts to avoid a fall into discomfort by suggesting ways that we can remain at peak pleasure, but fetched solutions often cannot compete with The Body’s urgent distress signals. Getting stuck at the crest is what we call stress. Stress is the stubborn resistance to a letdown.

Whenever we experience a letdown, we are actually falling into very our own reservoir of discomfort, unease, sadness, and sorrow which has been left to fester below the surface of our day-to-day lives. Personal difficulties encountered in life are not the cause of our grief, but instead can be understood as an abrupt exposure of the repressed distress hiding underneath. Any time we hit bottom, we immediately find a way to bring ourselves back to the pleasure state. This is learned behavior and happens without our conscious attention.

In a very real sense, we become addicted to the people, objects, and situations in our lives.

Whether we are conscious of it or not, we all live in constant hope that our pleasure sources will continue. We deny that life involves never ending change. We demand permanence because we think it will ease our discomfort. This does not mean that the people, objects, and situations in our lives are necessarily bad in themselves. The way we relate to our lives is the issue.

Utilizing relationships solely for the pleasure we derive from them is a very potent way to distract ourselves from inner distress, perhaps the most potent. The opinion of others is intoxicating whether one realizes it or not. Entire lives are lived in fear of losing positive esteem from others. The attempt to maintain approval from others is a strong motivating factor when making lifestyle, relationship, and career choices. There are those who criticize themselves so that others will not; this is the root of perfectionism. Self-criticism and over-achievement are forms of self-protection. They are behaviors covertly meant to protect the pleasure received from the positive attention of others. Procrastination is the need for positive attention to the point of hesitation and inaction. The possibility of losing someone’s respect or praise causes one to delay taking actions that are necessary and/or desired.

A cliché down and out gambler and the stereotypical yogi ascetic are suffering from the same compulsion: they strive for the pleasure rush of the win. Conversely, one may receive pleasure from being different, special, or uniquely un-special, blending into society seamlessly. These are all forms of pride.

It’s important to note that the addict label, so stigmatized in society, applies to many of us who have never considered ourselves as such, but live replacing one pleasure inducing activity with another in a futile search for sustained pleasure.

Each of us must consider how often we have crashed into despair, discomfort, and pain after losing our grip on someone or something that we thought to be the source of our happiness.

The Intellect runs into our memory banks and fetches knowledge from each of the categories in an attempt to answer these questions. The Intellect is desperate to help us, but there is one simple fact standing in its way: There is no problem to solve. The distress signals in The Body are not a problem. These unpleasant sensations are The Body asking to be heard. The Body wants attention. Most of us are just too busy accepting every thought that The Intellect fetches to notice.

Every time a potential solution fails to solve our non-existent problem we fall into our reservoir of repressed distress. This is a never-ending cycle. Tension in The Body accumulates as we age and the strain becomes exhausting. The longer pleasure permanence is sought, the more discomfort is accumulated in The Body.

In The Sunshine we realize that life is an experience, not a problem to solve.

Life on the right side of the diagram involves constant and persistent evaluation. We look for pleasure in every single aspect of our lives. The closer we move towards The Thought-Storm, the more we criticize and judge all aspects of our life. If we determine that something, someone, or some situation has negative value, we avoid or denounce it. If we judge someone or something to be a potential pleasure source, we cling to it. We see life as a problem to solve. The more solutions we attempt the better - quantity is what matters. Some traditions call the right side of the diagram Maya. You can also equate it to what some call the Ego. On the left, we live a more qualitative experience. Some call this soul, heart, the Tao, or the poetic life. This is the experience of life as a work of art which includes both pleasure and discomfort in an unfolding rich tapestry of events. The Sunshine represents an alternative to constant evaluation. It is highly subjective and does not rely solely on inherited concepts.

Quiet sitting provides a glimpse into the actual present moment. Sensations in The Body anchor us to what is happening right now, not a conceptual “now” fetched by The Intellect. This present moment is not an idea of what you’d like to be doing in the future, or what you did in the past, but rather the living, breathing present moment that The Body resides within at all times.

The Body needs to heal. The constant underlying distress and the effects of our compulsive activities are very taxing on this delicate instrument. Its sensory alarms have been blaring non-stop with no outlet for most of our lives. Quiet sitting is an opportunity to turn our attention to The Body. We can let it blare without distraction or repression. This allows The Body to properly express itself and gradually regain homeostasis. This is the actual meaning of relaxation. It is quite different from the false relaxation that we often convince ourselves we are enjoying when partaking in culturally encouraged “relaxing” activities.

We do not have to stop our thoughts. We do not have to “clear our minds.”

Do not try to make yourself feel better. Do not try to make yourself feel worse. Both of these are compulsions that will distract you. This process is not about cheering yourself up or wallowing in self-pity. Self-Pity falls into the emotional coping category. It is a sneaky method to find pleasure in drama. Consider sitting as a form of exposure therapy. It is not a problem if you are uncomfortable or don’t feel well. It’s kind of the point.

After the impulse passes, it is important to consider the actual cause of the compulsion. The Intellect fetched a dangerous compulsion to compensate for the loss of something that you previously expected would provide you with pleasure. What was that loss?

Eventually, The Observer notices The Intellect’s fetching and The Body’s alarms during daily activity, not just sitting. A keen awareness of The Trinity of Mind arises during routine daily activity.

Everyone you meet is experiencing the same thing: The Body is sounding the alarms and The Intellect is fetching a frenzy of thoughts. Everyone experiences The Life Wave. Everyone is caught in The Thought-Storm just like you are. Those who are lost in the desperate cycle of pain, pleasure seeking, and compulsive activity provoke empathy. Even if their life situation is different to yours, and even if their compulsions are so severe and harmful that they warrant rehabilitation and/or incarceration, you share the same fundamental pathology: compulsive pleasure seeking and avoidance of discomfort. This recognition is true compassion.

True love involves appreciating the people, objects, and situations in our lives without desperately needing them to provide us with pleasure. The constant evaluation of whether a person, a thing, or a circumstance serves our personal interests fades away. Most of us have never been fully immersed in true love, but it literally takes no effort to experience it once The Thought-Storm lets up. In this state, Status Quo love is exposed as the fraud that it is, comprised of transactional relationships rooted in compulsive neediness.

These by-products cannot be sought or achieved. You will remain in The Thought-Storm if you make them a goal. Your priority must be to Sit With It every day. Over time, you will Slow Your Wave and, if you are fortunate, The Thought-Storm will give way to The Sunshine.

it takes courage to sit while the rest of the world is spinning out of control.