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Can you eliminate the emotion of boredom?
Can you kill boredom using boredom? I mean can I lock myself in my room for a month and meditate and really get to experience boredom. Afterward its effects would be dulled. I think its the worse defilement. I hate it, drives me mad. Imagine how simple life would be if you didn't have that feeling. I have been hoping meditation would help this. It does, but only while meditating. The it grabs me and makes me do something else. Once I've done it, its not satisfied and makes me do more. It must die.
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If you get bored while meditating, that's fine! It's about bringing awareness to every moment, not filling every moment with mental stimulation. If it drives you mad as you say, then look at the feelings being bored generates within you. Try to analyze that instead of simply pushing boredom away.
Boredom can lead to experiencing emotions like sadness, frustration, and impatience.
The real objective is to find that useful thing to do.
Listen to this podcast on boredom from Audiodharma
http://www.audiodharma.org/talks/audio_player/2209.html
There's laziness, fatigue, low-energy health problems, etc., but no such thing as boredom
Especially while striving to follow a Buddhist path for gosh sakes!
:eek:
I think the only way to kill boredom is to something that you WANT to do. Not while you are bored though, before. When you are bored you are often oblivious to what would make it better. I find that for myself it's interacting with people, playing videogames or travelling.
Also, a thing becomes interesting if you are interested in it.
@sisnarf: please see that boredom is just boredom, stop creating the drama. suffering happens when things are not seen as they actually are.
It's indeed important to ask oneself why one feels bored, but to say it simply doesn't exist...is the same as saying none of our moods exist either...which from a certain perspective could be a valid statement...but when people are seeking help, it rarely is.
More and more I see people dismissing the OP's problems on this board (bored :P) in a very quick, harsh and ...unskillful way.
For example I mentioned I could stay in my room and contemplate boredom for a week. Hopefully this meditation could provide some insight and relieve this state. I got various responses like you can't eliminate a emotion by stongly experiencing it. At the various opposite end I got suggestions that some people do stay in a room for a week. Many also mentioned meditating contemplating on the bordom. Then we go into this thing that bordom is not real. Well if its not real why do I experience it? I must be able to get rid of it. Then trying to say bordom is something else like fatigue, laziness ect.. doesn't make sense either. Because if there is no such thing as bordom why is there such thing as laziness? Finally coments about going out and doing something seems to contradict the idea of this meditation/mindfull contemplation I'm using for insight into these emotions(states) I do realize I can cure bordom by going to the bar or climbing a mountain but thats not my point. I want to see if I can eliminate the need to want to do these things. To me bordom seems to be the central concept of Buddism. Its about the ego that keeps demanding attention. It wants to be constantly entertained, this creates the I sense(so I figure) Then ultimately you end up suffering when you lose the things that used to fill your bordom. Like if you lose your legs and exercise was your main source of entertainment then you will feel deep bordom. This horrible bordom seems like the worse kind of pain. I wish I was the guy who posted, there is no such thing as bordom. He is either enlightened or has yet to experience some hard battles.
Thanks for all replies and thoughts
It is a symptom of an uncontrolled mind, When the mind thrives upon and craves mental stimulation and excitement it ever so more discriminates between this and that as being causes of happiness. This pleasure seeking arises from the Self cherishing mind that seeks our own happiness and when unfulfilled results in mental pain and anguish.
So one must have an aim to work for the happiness and benifit of others and to meditate upon the emptiness of self and phenomena to lessen and eventually cut these root afflictions of self-cherishing and self-grasping and you will find bringing to mind the emptiness of phenomena in this way will help cease delusions arising from our ever pervasive ignorance.
As for semantics, I think boredom classifies as a mood which is a long term emotional state.
To suggest that boredom does not exist is to persuade the "bored" person to get a bit more articulate about what s/he's feeling. Is it laziness? Is it fatigue? Is it lack of focus? All those answers will lead to appropriate action and eliminate the STATIC do-nothing-ness of boredom.
IMO, Boredom is a notch above stupidity, or feeling useless: it's a sickening time waster to think that about oneself. My declaring that is doesn't exist is a means of offering encouragement.
That's a way to inspire people to get going and not sit idle.
Now I understand where you are coming from. I'm sorry for my delay in seeing what you meant.
Boredom is a subtle form of craving. It will be around until one has substantially eliminated craving.
"Get going" is not the best advice to someone who feels bored. When one is bored one tends to not know "where" to go. But anyway....just clarifying why I said what I said in the first post
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Mark Twain
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain
Take responsibility.
Then you won't be bored.
If I say to myself, "I am bored," in my mind it is the same as my saying, "I'm stupid," or "I'm lazy." It's not quite true, not accurate, kind of nebulous and it's certainly not very self-complimentary.
Maybe it was the way I was brought up. We weren't allowed to be bored. LOL!