Boredom.

[Honza]

Do you suffer? I admit that I do. Have spent too long without a job or partner and the long days of inactivity are catching up with me.

[sky]

Originally Posted by Honza

Do you suffer? I admit that I do. Have spent too long without a job or partner and the long days of inactivity are catching up with me.

Have you thought about doing some Voluntary Work Honza ? It'll get you out and about and a chance to mix with others.....

[green1]

Boredom is impossible. Look at all the beautiful things, the flowers, trees, sky, stars, clouds, mountains, seas, etc. Such a beautiful mystery.

This requires a few years of practice but you will eventually be in awe of the universe and boredom will become impossible. It is worth it!

I had a really profound insight experience once due to boredom. I was heavily into exploring the idea of the unreality of thought that week and one day I had that strong "I'm bored" thought and the corresponding unpleasant feeling that accompanies that thought but this time I questioned the reality of that thought and it's "feeling" "I'm bored."

Not questioning in a "thinking" type way, but I questioned it's realty through experiential observation. Like focusing my awareness and attention totally on it as substance and something clicked understanding wise and I "saw" or knew it only had the reality I gave it, that it contained no reality in itself and that "unpleasant feeling" vanished in an instant. It was like it never occurred. All traces of that unpleasant feeling and boredom were gone.

All of this happened really fast, in less than a second. Insight's are great in that they show what is possible, but I sure can't maintain them. So yea I still get bored. I just read some mystic the other day, I can't remember where, but he was saying we need activity. To be involved in something. It's not really natural to "have nothing to do," well that can be pleasurable right having nothing to do, that's not boredom, boredom is like a lack of interest in doing anything added to nothing to do that we want to do. Maybe it comes out of loneliness as well. Human's are social animals and thrive in communities. We are not really made to be alone. It's like dogs. They too are built as social animals and do not thrive alone. They also get depressed alone.

When I am not into anything, and can't find an interest in anything, I get bored and depressed. But really, talking from a spiritual viewpoint, that is not a state of things missing or lacking, because something huge is there, a demand for entertainment, a demand for something to take one away from their mind, from thought, to get lost in something else.

Insights show me, yea some enlightened person can transcend all this stuff but I'm not there. I'm not that evolved. I get some freedom from thought and ego momentarily, but the majority of the time I am right smack dab in thought and feeling and experiencing everything that comes from that. We are hard wired into these bodies and their brains for a reason. To experience all this junk. Or maybe to get free of it or try to which takes more awareness.

There's a ton of things one can do when bored. Binge watch an absorbing show, like "The Last Kingdom" some adventure historical story like that, I've been watching a bunch of stuff on netflix, or I get into all kinds of stuff on my computer. I have music making software, movie making software, multi-player video games. Sometimes I paint or do sculpture. Post on forums like this. or we can just focus on transcending thought, putting no demands on ourselves, that kind of thing.

But yea those few times "I am between interests" and have nothing to do, that does not feel good.