As much as I am plugged in, and spend a lot of my free-time online or watching movies, I am becoming more and more comfortable with not doing anything, or doing nothing. In the modern world, the need to keep ourselves entertained is growing and our ability to be content without having something to do is diminishing. Going anywhere in Bangkok provides constant reminders of just how much society is growing dependent on their devices to keep them from getting bored.
Even though a lot of the time I spend is devoted to learning Thai or studying Dhamma, I still feel compelled to put the book or computer down and let life catch up to me. What I am coming to believe is that boredom is a myth. It's an experience based on the fear that the mind will have nothing to engage itself in and we will therefore have to bear witness to its insanity. Now, don't get me wrong, there's a reason this fear exists, and there are a million reasons why one would want to avoid having to witness the insanity of their own mind, but if we want to be free, there's no way around it.
Ignorance is bliss, but it's also prison. It's like painting beautiful scenery onto prison walls and believing that we have a nice view of reality. Sure, it's nice to look at a painting, but the moment we fail to realize that it's a painting, we are deluded. I don't know about you, but I for one intend to wake up from this state of constant delusion in order to see the world as it really is. There may be different techniques that enable us to eradicate this delusion, but all of them require some serious work to be done. Anyone who tries to promise you freedom that won't require you to do anything is deluded about what freedom really is.
So what is freedom?
Freedom, in the sense I am referring to, is the absence of impurities in the mind. So as long as there is still judgment, anger, resentment, impatience, pride, or greed, we cannot be free. If you think you are free, just check to see if any of these things are still present. If they are, you might find that it's worth a shot to learn this art of doing nothing.
But what's so special about doing nothing?
Well, if the mind is constantly full of defilements, doing nothing is a miserable experience. This is why I could only manage to sit for a few minutes when I first started meditating. Anything beyond that was mental torture. It was like someone pointing out all your shortcomings and expecting you to just sit there and take it. If you're like me, there's only so much you can handle in one sitting. But as the mind begins to calm down, the process of purification begins to take place and glimpses of freedom are experienced. Once freedom is experienced, the motivation to continue solidifies and the illusion of boredom is replaced with the reality of a crazy mind.
It's one thing to have a crazy mind, it's another thing to have a crazy mind with no skills as to how to deal with it. It would be like having a serial killer on the loose and knowing that there were no cops out there looking for him. That's when the real fear would set in, but as long as those cops are there we can at least tell ourselves, "They'll catch him, and then we can be safe again."
Not knowing how to deal with boredom is like knowing there is a serial killer in your neighborhood but not having anyway to protect yourself. It's that constant fear of doing nothing, of any gap in activity in which the crazy mind will lurk up behind you and you will be forced to sit through it's madness. The worst part is, for many, is that they won't even know what hit them. It's like being pulled into the underworld without having realize that you've gone. It's like a mental black hole, and it sucks up everything in its path.
If you have not explored silent meditation much, you can sit down with the idea of doing nothing and see what happens. You will probably just experience the familiar feeling of being bored, and then you will get caught up in your thoughts and spin into some dark abyss rather quickly. It's worth trying just to come to terms with the fact that this is how it is. That's why we use an anchor in meditation practice, most of the time, in order to have an object to focus our attention on and keep us grounded in the here and now.
I have some pretty good friends who have admitted to me that they haven't really tried much in the way of silent meditation. "I don't do well sitting still for long periods," they've said. Well, in my opinion, that's all the more reason to practice doing exactly that. If sitting still in silence is easy for you, and you don't just get sucked into thinking, or daydreaming, or some sort of state where you are half asleep and disconnected from the present moment, then you must have a fairly pure mind. If you are like me, and most others, it's not so simple. The dark reality of our inner world becomes evident and it can be truly scary. It makes us want to do something, do anything other than sit there and witness the chilling reality, but the more we are able to do exactly that, the more we are able to find freedom, peace, and happiness.
If you do try this, I'll just ask that you are honest with yourself. If you can admit that the mind is indeed crazy and out of control, the next step is to find a practice in which to learn to control it and purify it. Instead of thinking that meditation isn't for you, don't even think of it as meditation. Just think of it as being able to spend time with yourself, without doing anything else. The art of doing nothing is synonymous with a fulfilling life. I find it hard to believe that one could have a deeply fulfilling life without have the ability to do nothing. The more you avoid doing nothing, the more you allow your problems to pile on top of each other. Just like we need to take out the trash in our kitchen or on our computer, we need to take the time to empty the trash in our minds.
Doing nothing is a special thing to do. It's just you, watching your life unfold, from moment to moment. Still bored?
Even though a lot of the time I spend is devoted to learning Thai or studying Dhamma, I still feel compelled to put the book or computer down and let life catch up to me. What I am coming to believe is that boredom is a myth. It's an experience based on the fear that the mind will have nothing to engage itself in and we will therefore have to bear witness to its insanity. Now, don't get me wrong, there's a reason this fear exists, and there are a million reasons why one would want to avoid having to witness the insanity of their own mind, but if we want to be free, there's no way around it.
Ignorance is bliss, but it's also prison. It's like painting beautiful scenery onto prison walls and believing that we have a nice view of reality. Sure, it's nice to look at a painting, but the moment we fail to realize that it's a painting, we are deluded. I don't know about you, but I for one intend to wake up from this state of constant delusion in order to see the world as it really is. There may be different techniques that enable us to eradicate this delusion, but all of them require some serious work to be done. Anyone who tries to promise you freedom that won't require you to do anything is deluded about what freedom really is.
So what is freedom?
Freedom, in the sense I am referring to, is the absence of impurities in the mind. So as long as there is still judgment, anger, resentment, impatience, pride, or greed, we cannot be free. If you think you are free, just check to see if any of these things are still present. If they are, you might find that it's worth a shot to learn this art of doing nothing.
But what's so special about doing nothing?
Well, if the mind is constantly full of defilements, doing nothing is a miserable experience. This is why I could only manage to sit for a few minutes when I first started meditating. Anything beyond that was mental torture. It was like someone pointing out all your shortcomings and expecting you to just sit there and take it. If you're like me, there's only so much you can handle in one sitting. But as the mind begins to calm down, the process of purification begins to take place and glimpses of freedom are experienced. Once freedom is experienced, the motivation to continue solidifies and the illusion of boredom is replaced with the reality of a crazy mind.
It's one thing to have a crazy mind, it's another thing to have a crazy mind with no skills as to how to deal with it. It would be like having a serial killer on the loose and knowing that there were no cops out there looking for him. That's when the real fear would set in, but as long as those cops are there we can at least tell ourselves, "They'll catch him, and then we can be safe again."
Not knowing how to deal with boredom is like knowing there is a serial killer in your neighborhood but not having anyway to protect yourself. It's that constant fear of doing nothing, of any gap in activity in which the crazy mind will lurk up behind you and you will be forced to sit through it's madness. The worst part is, for many, is that they won't even know what hit them. It's like being pulled into the underworld without having realize that you've gone. It's like a mental black hole, and it sucks up everything in its path.
If you have not explored silent meditation much, you can sit down with the idea of doing nothing and see what happens. You will probably just experience the familiar feeling of being bored, and then you will get caught up in your thoughts and spin into some dark abyss rather quickly. It's worth trying just to come to terms with the fact that this is how it is. That's why we use an anchor in meditation practice, most of the time, in order to have an object to focus our attention on and keep us grounded in the here and now.
I have some pretty good friends who have admitted to me that they haven't really tried much in the way of silent meditation. "I don't do well sitting still for long periods," they've said. Well, in my opinion, that's all the more reason to practice doing exactly that. If sitting still in silence is easy for you, and you don't just get sucked into thinking, or daydreaming, or some sort of state where you are half asleep and disconnected from the present moment, then you must have a fairly pure mind. If you are like me, and most others, it's not so simple. The dark reality of our inner world becomes evident and it can be truly scary. It makes us want to do something, do anything other than sit there and witness the chilling reality, but the more we are able to do exactly that, the more we are able to find freedom, peace, and happiness.
If you do try this, I'll just ask that you are honest with yourself. If you can admit that the mind is indeed crazy and out of control, the next step is to find a practice in which to learn to control it and purify it. Instead of thinking that meditation isn't for you, don't even think of it as meditation. Just think of it as being able to spend time with yourself, without doing anything else. The art of doing nothing is synonymous with a fulfilling life. I find it hard to believe that one could have a deeply fulfilling life without have the ability to do nothing. The more you avoid doing nothing, the more you allow your problems to pile on top of each other. Just like we need to take out the trash in our kitchen or on our computer, we need to take the time to empty the trash in our minds.
Doing nothing is a special thing to do. It's just you, watching your life unfold, from moment to moment. Still bored?
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