"Be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which and be pointed out by your finger." Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)
The mind exists in a state of ‘not enough’ and so is always greedy for more. When you are identified with mind, you get bored and restless very easily. Boredom means the mind is hungry for more stimulus, more food for thought, and its hunger is not being satisfied.
When you feel bored, you can satisfy the mind’s hunger by picking up a magazine, making a phone call, switching on the TV, surfing the web, going shopping, or – and this is not uncommon – transferring the mental sense of lack and its need for more to the body and satisfy it briefly by ingesting more food.
Or you can feel bored and restless and observe what it feels like to be bored and restless. As you bring awareness to the feeling, there is suddenly some space and stillness around it, as it were. A little at first, but as the sense of inner space grows, the feeling of boredom will begin to diminish in intensity and significance. So even boredom can teach you who you are and who you are not.
You discover that a ‘bored person’ is not who you are. Boredom is simply a conditioned energy movement within you. Neither are you an angry, sad, or fearful person. Boredom, anger, sadness, fear, are not ‘yours’, not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go.
Nothing that comes and goes is you.
‘I am bored.’ Who knows this?
‘I am angry, sad, afraid.’ Who knows this?
You are the knowing, not the condition that’s known.
The mind exists in a state of ‘not enough’ and so is always greedy for more. When you are identified with mind, you get bored and restless very easily. Boredom means the mind is hungry for more stimulus, more food for thought, and its hunger is not being satisfied.
ReplyDeleteWhen you feel bored, you can satisfy the mind’s hunger by picking up a magazine, making a phone call, switching on the TV, surfing the web, going shopping, or – and this is not uncommon – transferring the mental sense of lack and its need for more to the body and satisfy it briefly by ingesting more food.
Or you can feel bored and restless and observe what it feels like to be bored and restless. As you bring awareness to the feeling, there is suddenly some space and stillness around it, as it were. A little at first, but as the sense of inner space grows, the feeling of boredom will begin to diminish in intensity and significance. So even boredom can teach you who you are and who you are not.
You discover that a ‘bored person’ is not who you are. Boredom is simply a conditioned energy movement within you. Neither are you an angry, sad, or fearful person. Boredom, anger, sadness, fear, are not ‘yours’, not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go.
Nothing that comes and goes is you.
‘I am bored.’ Who knows this?
‘I am angry, sad, afraid.’ Who knows this?
You are the knowing, not the condition that’s known.
~Eckhart Tolle - Stillness Speaks
Wise words...
ReplyDeleteThe difficult part is to make the distinction...