Boredom
The mindful way out of it
Life can be boring at times can’t it, either that or it can be overwhelming. But mindfully there is no such thing as boredom, it is all an attitude of mind. This lesson has been extremely valuable for me.
Boredom is a form of suffering and, like all suffering, do you celebrate the non-suffering, or take it for granted, i.e. the non-boredom moments? How often do you celebrate the morning when you wake up and don’t have back pain or toothache. I had to learn how to take this approach and it took a lot of effort because my family were massive complainers (hungry ghosts even — always wanting more) and I learned that approach to life very effectively.
But that can make life miserable and very unsatisfactory indeed. Or it did for me. Nothing was ever quite right, though I know I didn’t really feel like that inside and I did get a lot out of life. I am an enthusiastic participant of life by nature.
We are socialised into mindsets from such an early age and even if this is not in line with our natural dispositions, it is hard to fight against this programming. And this is the point. You first need to recognise the flaws in the life approach you have been trained into or embraced, and recognise it for what it is, a life underminer.
