> I have since understood it as training yourself to being bored...

There is a vast landscape of meditation practices from numerous traditions that focus on different aspects, but I think your comment is an extremely poor characterization of them. It's bit like describing playing guitar or piano as "moving your fingers in some specific patterns." Uh, no.

I think OP is correct, it just wasn't stated as well as it could've been. Meditation (at least some practice forms) is an act of forcing boredom upon yourself AND exploring how your mind's default settings react in that environment. There is a reason why focusing on something like your breath is recommended vs. focusing on the television (breath is boring!).

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

> “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

A quote from Blaise Pascal, a philosopher who spent a lot of time sitting quietly, alone, thinking.

Great quote, but he was probably talking about thinking, rather than meditation.

Boredom is an emotional state, it is not the absence of stimulation.

And sitting down in a quiet, non-stimulated environment typically produces all sorts of emotions, does it not?

YMMV but for many practitioners meditation does not imply boredom.

Maybe refine it to training yourself to accept being bored. In the sense of paying pure attention to what your are doing without judging it. This is the core focus of some forms of zen practice for example. There are clearly meditation practices which seeks other goals, but mere judgement free acceptance is an important goal for some.

E.g. you're doing dishes. It may be boring, but boring is a judgement. Set aside the judgement and there is just the act of doing the dishes, which is neither good or bad in itself, it just is. The outcome may be good (clean dishes), but the act itself is just sensory input and muscular impulses that you let rise and fall in your mind.

As such it is a practice in not letting yourself be affected by things you do not want to be affected by. The feeling of boredom that may arise if you let it, is just another object to meditate on. Learn to set it aside, and a lot of objections to doing "boring" tasks falls away.

> As such it is a practice in not letting yourself be affected by things you do not want to be affected by.

Meditation can be a lot more, but yes, I agree that this is an important lesson that can come from it.

I like your description. It's similar to how I describe meditation to people who have no experience with it, although I usually say:

When you're focused on something interesting, you easily are able to follow the stream of your own consciousness. It feels like one solid river of focus. It's only when your mind is bored that your stream of consciousness unravels. It's that unraveling that we tend to avoid and disregard. We don't wish to carefully examine those moments between focus on interesting things. Meditation forces those unravelings and teaches us how to recognize them, observe them more clinically, and manage a higher (meta) level of control over them.

Meditation has massive potential for very real, profound experiences. There is much that science doesn't understand about our bodies yet but that has been empirically discovered over the millenia.

Meditation can certainly be boring, but it's not necessarily training yourself to be bored. There are many different facets depending on the style of meditation you practice:

* Zen might get you enquire into yourself why you're getting bored, why you always need to feel some high, and ultimately, who am I? This may then lead you to realise that you are not your personality. Then you may find your consciousness shifts a little to something more fundamental, where you can see your thoughts just as thoughts and not "you". That fundamental state (called by some 'no mind') is blissful, serene, calm. It's a truly wonderful state of being and I'm fortunate to have had a good glimpse.

* Alternatively, Buddhists may teach you to just observe your experiences, not getting caught up in them, leading to the above experiences too.

* Taoists and certain yogic schools might suggest you sit there circulating your energy around, so you're certainly not 'doing nothing'. This can lead to some states that are nothing less than ecstatic.

The most effective form of meditation I've done (in ~15 years) combines both - energy movement followed by meditation. It seems ultimately that most paths converge on these two aspects, it's just a question of efficiency.

The results are incredible. I feel confident they will shift my baseline level of happiness up.

As a specific example, this week I experienced that there is a point located above the soft palette in the mouth, that when touched by the tip of the tongue (under certain conditions) results in a feeling close to orgasm. I was literally laughing when I discovered this. It's an incredible, ecstatic feeling.

For anyone who wants to know more, check out the free lessons at https://www.aypsite.org which are the clearest and most complete I've ever found. The specific practice above is called Khechari Mudra. Don't take my word for it, or the word of the guy who wrote those lessons. There's only one way you'll ever convince yourself about this stuff... practice for yourself :-)

Good luck!

(1) is often mentioned as a benefit of mindfulness meditation, but it always puzzled me; first, it seems something everyone does to some degree - thinking "I'm being paranoid" is essentially that recognition, no?

Second, it's always missing the second part: and then what? One can recognize an optical illusion as one, but that knowledge doesn't make it fade away. I mean, it can help to know, but it seems there's step missing between that and feeling serene.

Consciousness exists on many levels with many co-processes. Without careful meditative practices, we tend to view our minds along a linear path as we change our focus from thought to thought. We are immersed in our stream of consciousness. That stream is our identity.

Meditation forces a meta-examination of that stream and recognize that it isn't the one flowing river that you normally feel it to be. Meditation allows you to exercise other levels of your consciousness that can recognize, observe, and even control those other parallel threads of consciousness.

I have read that there are possible pitfalls for people already suffering from paranoid schizophrenic-ish disorders. I think they're already dealing with an out-of-control sense of not having a single stream of consciousness that they always recognize as themselves.

I can only speak for myself, but I don't find the sensation of a multi-threaded "me" all that alarming. YMMV

The important bridge is to realize that the feeling (paranoia) is something you can choose to embrace or not.

Once the feeling is no longer something that automatically 'happens to you', one can start to explore it - at a safe distance, no rush. Why am I feeling in this way? Is there a good reason? If yes, what could I do about it? What would happen if I would just dismiss the feeling without doing anything? What would happen if I embrace this feeling/act it out? Once an idea of what strategy is most likely to give a good outcome, one makes the choice.

Its kinda like having a person with an outsider perspective help you analyze the situation in a calm and thoughtful manner. Just with much higher bandwidth, less communication challenges and the person is always there for you.

What you're describing can be helpful, but I'm describing a state where you fundamentally go beyond any involvement of thoughts including a countering internal dialogue. By many accounts, the key indicator of being in this state is one of peace/bliss/serenity/total contentment.

In fact, I should really say you operate from a place which is 'before thought', since 'beyond' suggests something after the thinking process. Actually it can almost feel like thinking is a strenuous burden in this state, which suggests you're 'before' the thinking process.

Observing thoughts while still operating from "within your mind", which it sounds like you're describing, doesn't necessarily lead to that experience.

Agreed, what I am describing is an introspective, not a blissful state. It can help to discard unnecessary bad thoughts, and to choose to pursue good experiences which one might otherwise not (be it due to fear, stigma or just not realizing it would probably be enjoyable). Have not been able to induce a serene state via meditation, still need to work on that.

This is a bit tricky to explain.

It's a shift in perception to something that lets you view thoughts without getting caught up in them. So countering one thought with another isn't it because then you're still in thoughts. However...

The reason this is tricky is because a logical process can be used to reach this realisation - indeed I experienced this state while working with the koan "Who am I?" on a Zen retreat. As I continued to ask myself that question I "took myself apart". I deduced that "I" wasn't my body (because when I sleep my body remains but "I" don't), that I wasn't my thoughts (because I can observe them), nor the other "aggregates" as they're called in Buddhism. The one that I'd struggled with was my awareness, but I realised "I" wasn't even that.

Through this process of logical deduction I realised on some deeper level that I just fundamentally didn't need to pay any attention at all to my thoughts. They became as insignificant as if someone had left a radio on. Note that this is different to just the usual meditative technique of observing thoughts. At this stage, there is no technique involved, it's just how you operate at that time.

So then what? I just ignored them! Totally. I didn't try to shut them off, I literally didn't care if they were there, and I didn't pay any attention to them. In doing so I just felt so at peace. I didn't need to do anything to reach step 2. There is no step 2 :-D.

This is called "non-doing" in Taoism, and this serenity is claimed to be our "natural" state - that's to say if you view our continual pandering to thoughts as "unnatural", which it did strike me as. More like a big, habitual mistake to be honest. I guess this is also called "transcending the ego".

So I'd stand around at this farm where the retreat was happening. I didn't care that there were sheep in the field, but there were. I didn't care when it rained or if it didn't. At meal times I could see when something needed doing, and I did it, but I didn't care for it. I just felt deeply contented.

So it's very different from recognising an optical illusion, unless it's at a level where the recognition goes to your core and causes you to absolutely ignore your thinking mind, and not feed thoughts on any level (even sub-vocally).

Now the tricky part is it's so habitual to fall back into listening to your mind. I haven't experienced that state since the retreat (although it did last for a couple of weeks). However, it proved to me beyond doubt that it exists. It also has made me re-evaluate my life, why I do what I do, and what's important to me.

The headline is very polarised and sensationalist.

Now that you pointed it out, I agree with you it primarily helps me with managing my boredom (and the frustration it causes). Although I have no measurables to quantify its impact, I've felt some benefits to 'mindfulness meditation'. Just because it's not a cure-all doesn't mean it has no merit.

> I have since understood it as training yourself to being bored, and through that, focus better on a single task that is boring but you have to do it.

I've been meditating for years (on and off, not much at the moment) and what you've come up with there is actually a very useful description of at least some of its aspects.