If you have ever been to a meditation class or have done your share of alone time meditations at home you will be very much aware that it can be challenging to keep your mind in the right place. Sometimes your mind is racing and it is hard to focus on either your visualisation or attempting to clear you mind of thought to start with. This appears to be the main complaint that beginners in meditation as well as seasoned practitioners come up with when asked about their challenges with regards to meditation. However, there is a different side to that medal: what if you are able to clear your mind and go into meditation, but your sense of time plays up, it becomes tedious to a point when you simply cannot help but leave the meditation? The trouble here is that many of us are having a hard time separating serene calm and quiet from plain old boredom! It is all down to your experience of time. In the best possible case, going into meditation will lead to a weird feeling of “being in control of not being in control”. In this moment, letting go of control over what goes on and allowing things to happen on their own is perceived as a positive experience, and this in turn changes your experience of time flowing at a different speed. In some cases that difference can become so notable as to make you feel as if you are in a bubble of normal time and everything else is slowing down. Let’s call this one a ‘place of timelessness’. On the other hand, you may end up with internal processes churning away while you are waiting for something to happen. In the real world that could correspond to being told that your train has been cancelled or having to wait longer for an appointment. Not only will this be a grating experience, it will make time progress slower in your mind as you are left with a chunk of time that you don’t really know what to do with. Let’s call this one ‘place of annoyance’. And then there are situations where you don’t expect anything to happen but crave for something to happen. Nothing you can think of is tempting or you find yourself in a situation where nothing can be done, like waiting for that package delivery van to finally show up, or just not having anything of consequence to do at all. This is what I call the ‘place of boredom’. All three can occur during daily life or when attempting to meditate, but let’s focus only on the meditation moments. If you look closely, the ‘place of annoyance’ has an external element to it that makes that situation slightly different. In meditation, that could be a distracting sound or blinking light that keeps you from reaching a state of calm. Sometimes those cannot be helped and require blanking out. Don’t get me wrong: you simply compartmentalise your ability to exert control and will be perfectly able to let go on other levels. Nevertheless, it takes a bit of practice. The ‘place of boredom’ is an entirely different animal: it comes from within and is very different in nature to the ‘place of timelessness’. With boredom, it’s not so much about your surroundings slowing down, but your personal experience is experienced as much slower than everybody else’s. The time you spend in this place is stretched, but without that sense of contentment that comes from ‘timelessness’. If you ever find yourself in that place of boredom, it is a wise choice to pull out of there and remove the boredom through joyful activities. Meditation at this point is pointless as you are unable to let go of control in a way that promotes a state of calm. I realise that stepping back may be difficult, especially if this experience is the result of depression, grief, or similar feelings that need to be dealt with. It is important to recognise that obstacle as yet another hurdle that needs to be overcome in order to be able to experience ‘timelessness’ and true meditation. explore this difference whenever you feel bored
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September 2021
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