David Gerken is a good friend. We have both been to Michael Singer’s Temple but at different times. One day we will plan it so we are there together. He has also been impacted by the teachings of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi and we talk about such matters in a communion of souls.
One of his blogs is below. I thought it was excellent, so I obtained his permission to share it with you.
Happy Holidays!
Peace!
How to Make Boredom Your Ally on the Spiritual Path
It’s a perfect gateway to practicing mindfulness.
by David Gerken
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
Yes, this article is about boredom. No, it will not be boring.
The idea came to me the other day after reading this quote from Jon Kabat Zinn, one of the pioneers of meditation and mindfulness in America:
“When you pay attention to boredom, it gets unbelievably interesting.”
I’m not so much interested in the ‘interesting’ aspect of boredom as much as I am the very nature of it and what that state has to offer us mere mortal Earthlings.
What is boredom? It’s when we find ourselves with nothing to do. When this happens, it drives most people crazy. We get anxious. Jumpy. Moody.
Why? Because our normally distracted minds have nothing to do. Nothing to do but…
Deal with ourselves. And most humans will do anything to avoid that.
A Harvard boredom experiment
In fact, Harvard psychology professor Dan Gilbert conducted an experiment where people had to sit in a room for fifteen minutes with instructions to do absolutely nothing. All they had in the room was a button in front of them that they could push. Problem was, pushing the button gave themselves a painful electric shock.
So, the choice was, sit and be bored or shock yourself. Shockingly(?), a substantial majority gave themselves shocks instead of thinking about nothing.
It reminds me of the oft-quoted quote from the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal who wrote:
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
Just substitute ‘sit quietly in a room alone’ with ‘be bored’. Same thing.
When Pascal wrote that, there was a lot of boredom going on. Why? Because people had precious little to distract their attention. Life was simple. And spare.
Now? You know where this is going. Humankind has created an infinite supply of distractions to “entertain” us anytime we have nothing to do.
– Commuting to work on the subway? Whip out your iPhone and check your Instagram for the latest and greatest from your fave celebrities.
– Bored after dinner? Binge watch season five of Yellowstone…and if you’re still not ready to hit the hay, play Word Cookies on your phone until you nod off.
– Stranded at a long red light? Respond to the texts you’ve received in the last five minutes, until…HONK HONK! Yikes! The light turned green. Oops, sorry! And off you go. [Come on, you know that’s been you a time or two!]
Okay. So we’ve established that humans detest boredom and avoid it at all costs. As President Jed Bartlet from The West Wing used to say, “What’s next?”
What to do with boredom
What’s next is diving into what we can and should do when boredom arises. First, we should resist the impulse to slap it away by, for instance, whipping out our smart phones and tapping our way into distraction oblivion.
Next, we need to relax. How? Take a couple of slow, deep, cleansing breaths.
If you’re in the car at a red light, look out the window. At what? The trees. The sky.
If you’re at the airport waiting for your flight to board, look around at the other passengers. Watch the planes taking off and landing. And relax.
Or just close your eyes, get quiet and observe what’s going on inside you. What thoughts are racing around your head? Observe the thoughts without engaging with them.
Occupying the seat of self
In doing so, you will achieve the highest state in all of spirituality: Occupying the seat of self. Also known as, being the witness.
Better yet, use this ‘nothing’s going on time’ to close your eyes and follow your breath, AKA meditate. Nothing will relax you more than that.
All that other stuff we do when the slightest hint of boredom comes up? Surfing around on our phones, etc.? That is the opposite of relaxing. It produces its own kind of stress.
Boredom and mindfulness
Bottom line is I’m suggesting we practice mindfulness when we get bored. That we use the state of boredom as an opportunity to strengthen our presence muscles which improves our ability to enter into and remain in the moment in front of us.
I know many of you might be rolling your eyes at this. Relax, breathe and observe people at the airport? Look out at the planes? Check out the sky while I’m waiting at a red light? No thanks!
For those of you feeling that way, time for a dollop of tough love. Because that reaction is no different than if you were an alcoholic, I recommended that you stop drinking and you said no thanks.
What’s the analogy? Alcohol is damaging to the mind, body and soul of an alcoholic.
A distracted mind is harmful
Similarly, being crazy frenetic and stuck in our minds 24/7 is damaging to the mind, body and soul of all of us (which is most of us) afflicted with that affliction. It’s just that people with their nose in their phones the nanosecond they become aware they’re bored don’t realize, as the alcoholic does, how harmful the disease is.
Frankly, that might be my main job in writing these articles: Making you aware that a busy, distracted mind is not your friend. Quite the contrary.
Which doesn’t mean you get down on yourself when your mind starts torturing you. That’s actually a big, big no no.
NEVER berate yourself for any of this stuff. Ever. You’ll stifle your progress and feel worse. It’s a major lose, lose.
Be the observer of your mind
Just work on becoming more and more aware of the involuntary workings of your mind. Watch it. As if it’s not you. Because it isn’t. The real you is the consciousness that observes your mind at work.
Creating separation between that real you consciousness and the busy mind is one way of describing the entirety of the spiritual path. That’s all we’re doing.
And we can’t do that when our noses are stuck in our screens 24/7.
But we can when we’re bored.
The takeaway
The next time you become bored, see if you can resist the impulse to go straight to your phone, computer or television.
Take some breaths. Go for a short walk. Be where you are.
Start small. Try doing it once a day for a week.
