This is boring

I was reading and preparing for my Peace program that starts later this morning.

I’ve been reading on why people act compulsively for several decades now, to tell you the truth.

Because I suffered so much when I did stuff like smoke, overeat, drink, think, seek, grab.

It’s not news to me that sometimes I’ve decided to watch a movie because I feel the freedom of empty time, but hemmed in by my own demands of myself.

Write the thing! Get it done! Write the thing!

You don’t have time to watch the Martian!

(Blah blah blah).

Almost always, my belief systems appear to be supporting two Grand Ideas.

1) Not Enough.

2) Too Much.

Usually, these have to do with feelings.

Feeling like there’s not enough peace, love, relaxation, gentleness, nurturing, happiness, contact.

Feeling like there’s too much fear, anxiety, irritation, worry, darkness, unhappiness, tragedy.

But the other day, as I found myself absolutely joyfully blissed out at an awesome house party for a wonderful friend who turned 70 (without a substance of any kind entering my system in any compulsive way).

By comparing that moment of joy with humanity….to the moment I think there’s not enough….I remembered that sometimes, sometimes when I’m alone….

….a thought comes through that says….

….wait for it….

….this is boring.

This is it? says my brain.

Really?

This all you got for me, Reality? Seriously?

Come. On.

Like a Mean Girl.

But, I admit, it’s there anyway, even though it is so immature, self-centered, and shows how much I am seeking entertainment from This World (which I should probably call My World in that kind of moment, if I’m being totally honest).

Have you ever called a situation, or a person, or life….boring?

I know, it feels like you’re twelve.

OK, six.

But let’s look anyway.

That’s what inquiry is all about…after all.

(It’s called, becoming more mature and wise by starting with where you are, but I’m getting ahead of myself).

That person, or that quiet moment, is soooooooo *BORING*!!

Is that true?

Yeah!!!

Same house, same people, same neighborhood, same obsessive tendencies, same stories, same complaints, same way of saying hello to me, same clothes, same repetitive need to buy groceries and pay the mortgage bill and do the laundry, same business goals, same trying, same family dynamics. Same, same.

Same.

(I love the way the mind makes things really huge and wide, like so big they are statements about All Of Life, for All Time).

Can you absolutely know it’s true the thing you think is boring, actually IS boring?

Are you sure?

Oh. Um.

No.

Not at all.

I’ve found an empty silence in my own familiar living room on a Friday night the most remarkable place I’ve ever been, or felt. I’ve been on totally silent retreats with zero talking and smells coming alive, sights of nature astonishing me, staring at people with wonder.

Kind of weird, but it’s been true.

But in THIS moment….my neighbor telling me her same story over again about her cat is definitely boring.

Maybe.

Hmmm.

Rats.

NO!!! I can’t know she’s absolutely positively boring!!

I can’t know that if my mind says…..”boring”…..

….it is true.

Dang it.

How do you react when you think something, or someone, is boring?

Frustrated. Looking. Shouting “change the channel!!!”

Hunting around for a little somethin-somethin.

You know what you do when you think something’s boring.

I used to do eating. Now, I do more subtle things like work on my business, or write, or read spiritual books, or watch spiritual teacher lectures, or plan my next program.

But who would you be without your belief?

Who would you be in the very moment you think…(boring!)…whether you speak it out loud or just notice something moving away from the moment?

Who would you BE?

No thought that this is boring.

Hold still, consider it.

Look around the moment.

Woman talking about her cat, showing me her cat, leaning in to have me pet her cat.

What is your moment?

Without the belief, in that moment, I notice gentle quiet energy, soooo sweet. I notice ideas about what else is happening over there in the house, and that’s OK too. I notice a genuine and very slow impulse to now move back into the house, to go over there, not here. I notice dear faces, openness, kindness. I notice silence.

You may find, without your belief that someone is boring, that you turn in another direction. Or you laugh. Or you lean closer to that person, with tenderness. Or you reach out to pet.

What’s it like to not have the thought that life is boring?

It happens…..life without that thought.

Just when you least expect it, have you noticed?

Dream Song

It’s all so beautiful, and changing, and brilliant as a bonfire in the dark November rain.

Turning it around: I bore myself, in this moment of boredom. I am boring. My mind is boring. My thoughts are boring.

But I am pretty exciting.

I am much more than these thoughts, these little repetitive beliefs.

Me, wag. Me, exciting. Me, wagging.

You too. All of us.

Nothing missing, no one left behind, nothing out of order, nothing more required.