The Fear Beneath Boredom
El Miedo Bajo el Aburrimiento
A student describes a transition in practice where peace feels dull and boring, and the teacher points to a subtle fear underneath that boredom, suggesting the student is on the edge of a deeper transformation.
The Fear Beneath Boredom
A student describes a transition in practice where peace feels dull and boring, and the teacher points to a subtle fear underneath that boredom, suggesting the student is on the edge of a deeper transformation.
At this point, it's quite clear. In a sense, I feel fully into this subjectivity, which is a very subtle sensation. Somehow it's noticed, and yet it's seen very clearly. It doesn't change with any effort. I get the point: it is simply not possible to change, and this sense of subjectivity is still felt. And when you see so clearly that it cannot change, it somehow feels okay. It's there, and it's there, just like the laptop appears in the same way it appears. This is the point I'm at.
And do you experience a sense of something missing or being subtly wrong?
It's simply recognizing that I feel stuck, somehow feel stuck. There's a position that is still relating to thought, and there is a lot of recognition that it is just appearing like all objects appear.
And in the meditation, how is the sense of experience in the moment? The feeling tone: is there a sense of peacefulness, or love, or beauty, or something like that?
It's like the sound I mentioned before, somewhere in the air, louder near my ears, and I keep choosing it. It's very peaceful, choosing it. But now it's starting to feel different. It feels very boring, really, really. It's not something I like. It's peaceful, there is a lot of peace, but it's dull, and there's a dislike in there.
There's a dislike in there?
Yes. It's the type of peace that I don't like, but it's a lot of peace. Very blank, no flavor, that sort of peace. And when I choose it, to start off there is this full, flowing peace, but then it is boring. It feels very boring, and then I slip into thought. When I realize I'm in thought, I just go back to it. That's what my experience with the meditation is like.
Boredom as rationalized resistance
My sense is that the experience of boredom has an emotional component to it. There is a resistance. When we call something boring, it's a way to rationalize something deeper that is happening. For example, there could be a fear, or a restlessness, or anxiety. So notice: if you have that sense of boredom, it rationalizes the going into thought. Because then you can say, "Well, this is boring, there's nothing here. I'll go back to the habit of thought." But potentially, if you stay in this place that you're calling boring, there's a discomfort there, and you can refine your understanding of it. Then something else gets to shift.
What's happening, my sense with you, is that you're in a transition. And it's very tricky, because all of the mechanisms want to go back into a type of contraction, a type of identification. Until the new becomes the normal, there's going to be a bit of back and forth.
I would suggest looking for what's actually happening when you call it boring. Notice if there might be a subtle fear or a subtle restlessness, because what you're touching could completely transform you, and a part of us is going to be, in a sense, endangered by that transformation.
Yes, it's fear. It is fear. I have seen it. From this sense of fear there is this resistance to the here and now.
Nothing I do can change it
What I am truly recognizing is that this sense cannot be changed. I truly see that it comes up appearing like every other object, like the laptop appearing. It appears. And I feel like I have tried all the tools: seeing it fully, feeling it, recognizing it fully. Nothing I do can change it. It cannot be changed. I'm just at this point now, where it's appearing just like everything else.
That's a success, in a sense.
Yes. And by truly seeing it, there is less and less of a reaction around this sense of fear, this sense of subjectivity. It has gotten slightly better, because I have experienced a couple of times just watching these things go. It feels like something has left. And I can see that nothing physically, nothing in any way, has changed. It's just that something not so annoying goes by itself.
I have experienced a couple of times that heavy sense just going by itself, and I couldn't have done anything to make it go. So I'm at this point of realizing they cannot be changed. They're just there, like the sky appears. I can't make the sky appear. You just get to this point of clearly recognizing: truly, there is just no one doing, no one changing.
Let the transition unfold
Let it change you. You are in a transition, and part of what is happening is a transition into a way of being that is what's called effortless. This takes a bit of time, because the body and mind change. There are changes in the mechanism, in the biology, in the brain.
What can start to happen is that the experience or the habit of what previously felt right and good still pulls. But you start to recognize it actually isn't that right, and it doesn't feel that good. What actually feels good was previously felt as not good. There was a fear around it. So what's changing is the understanding of what actually is good, what actually feels right, what actually is what we're wanting.
As that changes, you're in a transition, and there's a back and forth. But you can start to see, for example, that which feels boring, or which you have felt as boring, with the fear underneath it: over time you can start to recognize, if I put words to it, that it is actually much more delicious. But it takes time before you can appreciate it in that way. It's very subtle. Then, because of that sweetness, you start to naturally gravitate toward it. You don't have to force it. You don't have to practice that, in a sense. What you need to do is recognize, more and more, that it's actually a lot tastier than what you thought to be good.
What I think is happening is that my nature is constantly recognizing. It cannot settle in any definition, any idea of what I am. At any point, if I pick up an idea about what awareness is, this subjectivity becomes much stronger. My sense of subjectivity has become so sensitive that sometimes, even listening to a teacher, I get a sense of resistance: "This is not it. That is not true." The truth is constantly recognizing itself, and no one else can say what it is, what I am.
Noticing the contraction of ideas
When that appears, the habit of an idea about what you are or what this is, you start to recognize it. What also matters is that you start to notice the experience of that subtle contraction. You notice that it's actually not that good.
Yes. What I also picked up is that this reality notices everything. It doesn't notice what is subject or object. Yet somehow there is a noticing of this subjectivity.
Exactly. I think that at this point, you could almost not bother too much with it. Just give it time.
Yes. Thank you.
You're welcome.