Boredom & vipassana meditation

From this meeting the text is available:

Holland, Amsterdam, June 1, 2003. Somebody comes in the chair.
   
> Welcome. You were here last year, I think.
< Makes a waving movement over her shoulder.
> Two years.
< Same hand movement.
>

Even more. Ah, oke, it seems like yesterday.

< I would like to speak about something.
> Ok
< I would like to speak about boredom.
> You feel bored now?
< No, but as I become more silent, my mind sometimes finds it very boring. And the power it then creates, I find it very difficult not to react, the restlesness.
>

What you call boredom is some feelings inside of your body. That is all that it is. When you don’t want those feelings, it is kind of like you escape into boredom because then you can just be bored. But you can also, when you recognise that there is boredom, start to explore inside yourself the feelings that are there, that you don’t want to experience. And that is not boring at all. You have changed a lot since last I saw you. A lot has changed. Well, good.

< It works. Also your sense of humour works. Sometimes I like it with other people that have the same work, the same job as you.. And I am always wondering why they don’t have.
> Haha.
< It is vital I think.
> Haha.
< I have got another question.
> Please.
< I have been diving a bit in vipassana meditation. They of course claim it is the way. But I find it very hard work.
> It is hard work.
< A bit boring. But they have this thing that they don’t want to intellectualise. You just have to observe. And they find this way a bit intellectualising.
> If it was only using the mind, it would be intellectual only. But what we speak of is only, you could say, a finger pointing. Because what we speak is something that you actually know already. And when that knowing gets recognised it is much deeper than just the intellectual. With vipassana – I did one vipassana retreat, so I am not an expert. I didn’t do very well at it either. It was very severe.
< That is where my boredom question comes from.
> The invitation is to be the witness and gradually you are led from single witnessing to more deeper capacities to witness. In the witnessing, what happens is: you remain as something and what you are witnessing is an object to you.
< Actually you are saying the same thing. They say that you have to observe your sensation before your reaction.
> But I am not talking about observing it, I am talking about being it. Not looking it from the outside in, being it from the inside. So, go and sit in the middle of it.
< So, go and sit in the middle of it.
> You can’t even say be in the middle of it. I have to be really careful with wording here. Right now there is an experience, yeah, right here. Forget any model you have heard. Let’s look at the way it is. Right here, right now, is there you and your experience? Where do you end and your experience begin?
< There is no
> So when I tell you to sit in the middele of it well, where is the middle of it, where is me, where is it, it doesn’t make sense. But what happens within consciousness is: a movement happens where we move to the witness. Where we move out of the direct experience into looking at it. So we say ….. I feel ­ and we look inside and then we label what is going on and now we are the witness and “it” is something. And usually there is a relationship: I like or I don’t like this experience.
< You have to try not to do that, the labelling.
> But already, as soon as there is a you and an it, you are something. I would say, a deeper inquiry is: where is the you , where is the it?
< They don’s even talk about these things, you, it. They just say do it.
> Yes, I know, but implied in there is an it that you can watch. So what it encourages is the habit of attention of you.
< The watcher.
> The watcher, rather than the habit of attention of being. And that is quite different. And they claim that what that does, is that you become one pointed.
< I have never heard them saying that word, but
> Why do you watch? I’ll tell you: it is to become one pointed. And then, when you are one pointed
< What do you mean by one pointed?
> Focussed. That your attention is not scattered all around. To be, what’s needed?
< Can you say that again?
> To be, what’s needed? What do you have to do?
< Nothing.
> Nothing.
< Sometimes it takes a bit more effort not to listen to all those voices up there
> Yeah, we can talk it like that. (Silence). Natural to being, natural to conscioussness (and that required no effort) is this capacity to know.
< I find it difficult just to know. That’s why I focussed on that focussed thing.
> Right now, how difficult is it?
< Now, it’s not
> It’s not. Ok.
< When I am here it’s not. When I sit in a chair over there it’s not.
> What you said at first was “when I’m here it’s not”. When are you not here?
< When I am up there (pointing at the head, laughter). I have done these games already many, many times, but it didn’t bring me to the peace.
> Right now.
< Now it is there.
> Ok.
< Last time we also played the game for about twenty minutes.
> Is it a game?  No.  A bit. My mind finds it a game sometimes. And I can’t get out of it. Then I already know that I have to be quiet and don’t analyse bla bla bla, do the whole thing, but I can’t step out of it, so what to do then? ……….. getting bored.
< No, no I can tell you. When you notice your mind doing that, what it is actually telling you is that there is an experience that is happening that, without recognising it, you are trying to move away from. See, when we look at it, it is most simple. And again this is a way of speaking, you know. It is like: any speaking is not gonna be a 100 percent accurate. But we can say there is consciousness here, it is not possible to be accurate. And we can say that there is experience here. I mean, that’s just simple. Can you deny that there is consciousness here? Nobody can. Is there anybody here that can say that you are not aware at this moment? Nobody can say that. Everybody is aware. Anybody can say there is no experience at this moment, that you can’t have any experience? So we can see, all of us can say that, but what do we mean by awareness and consciousness? If you look what is awareness, you see it’s not something. You can’t actually see it, taste it, smell it. You can’t find an it. You can just say awareness is here. Something with experience. This moment, there is something that we call experience here. But if you actually try to describe your experience of this moment, now, can you? It’s impossible, you’d need books to try and describe the fullness of it.. And by the time you’ve written all the books it would be way gone. But the joke is, we always think we know what is going on. We can’t describe this moment, but we think we can describe our past. So, if we look we can see that in this moment there is experience and consciousness, but we can’t say what our experience is, we can’t say what consciousness is. And can we really find where the boundary is between experience and consciousness? There is just this. It is life you could say. And we cannot say where the one begins and the other one ends.
< But still we are talking
> And there is talking happening. And there is understanding happening. Or not. So, what’s interesting in this flow of experience is that when the experience is just moving, there is no problem. The only problem that we ever have, is when we don’t want the experience that we are having. If you look at it, every problem is only that: this experience I’m having I don’t want. And when you look at it you can see it is cuckoo. How can you not have the experience you are having? The moment you don’t want the experience you are having, all that that not wanting does, is: it locks that experience in. So, if I tell you “don’t think of monkeys” you carry monkeys. When you don’t want tot have a certain experience then literally you carry that experience with you, everywhere, all the time, 24 hours a day,  7 days a week. So, when you have an experience and your mind goes: this experience I don’t want, I never want to have this experience. I don’t want to have it now and I never want to have it again! Now you are realy carrying it, yeah. And for most of us, we’ve got a bunch of that. I never want to be hurt again, I never want to have that experience again, I only want to have love, light and whatever it is. I never want to be bored again. So, our whole consciousness is arranged trying to control our experience and then we wonder why we feel terrible.
< But out of the society people also really give this message the whole time.
> Yes, I understand, there is a big confusion. It looks like it’s workable. You know, all we have to do is fill in the blanks: meditate more, change ourselves, fix ourselves, understand, and then it will get better. We are gonna improve the quality of our experience. But what that does is, it doesn’t invite us to be right here. It is always about future. It is always about meditating now so it will be better later. Otherwise, why would you put yourself through that discomfort?
< You can see it as a discomfort, but if you just accept everything that is happening, it is not a discomfort.
> Then what is your motivation for doing it?
< It’s a focus.
> And why do you want to be focussed?
< Otherwise I get lost. …. You can’t loose it, I know. But still, it came on my path, so
> So now you’re examining it. What’s the promise?
< Enlightenment.
> Exactly. When?
< Long time.
> Long time. Ok.
< I’ve been fighting it all time. But still, sometimes it is nice to do it.
> I understand.
< But is’s amazing to see how many people really go for it.
> Absolutely. But not so amazing, when you look at what most people are into.
< And the rules are so strict.
> Yeah. You see, it does offer something, because you start to see the workings of your mind. And it feels like you are doing something. To get somewhere. So it offers a few things. At least you are going somewhere.
< Can I give you a hug?
> Ah, sure.
   
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