Written by Jen Liu

“There is a secret virtue to boredom: it's also a gateway … to stillness, to curiosity, to the subtle murmurings of intuitive wisdom that can only be heard when we turn down the volume of everything else and listen closely. It places us exactly where we need to be for our innate tendency towards discovery to organically arise and fill the space that boredom creates.”

Our world has become increasingly more streamlined and tailored to, as much as humanly possible, reduce instances of so-called boredom. Smartphones contain a range of apps and games designed to keep our minds and thumbs occupied; news and social media feeds automatically and infinitely refresh and regenerate so we never have to run out of content to consume. Is it any wonder that so many people (including long-time practitioners) face an innate resistance to meditation, an activity largely based on stripping away all of that noise? Why are many of the same people who are willing to make big sacrifices and explore other challenging methods for the sake of self-improvement so turned off by the idea of being alone with their mind for ten or twenty minutes a day?

The answer for many is simple: boredom is really, seriously uncomfortable. It has the potential to feel even more unpleasant than an extreme negative emotion like anger, because at least when we're angry, there's an aspect of drama and stimulation still commanding our attention and activating us. We might even enjoy indulging our anger sometimes, but we rarely enjoy feeling bored. Boredom is a place where we aren't sure when something will happen, or if anything will happen at all. And meditation asks us to stay there for a while and not try to escape it.

That’s because there is a secret virtue to boredom: it's also a gateway. It's a gateway to stillness, to curiosity, to the subtle murmurings of intuitive wisdom that can only be heard when we turn down the volume of everything else and listen closely. It places us exactly where we need to be for our innate tendency towards discovery to organically arise and fill the space that boredom creates.

It doesn't happen every time; most sits do not end with some epiphany, like the sigh of relief at the end of a grueling process. But without total acceptance for all those moments of boring, seemingly pointless practice — placing our awareness on our breath over and over with no immediate, perceptible reward — we wouldn't be present, either, to receive those wonderful lightning bolts of unexpected insight. They're a package deal.

We can learn a lot by befriending boredom — by not seeing it as wasted time that we endure to get to the "good" parts, but instead worthwhile in and of itself. It can push us to engage deeper with the world around us, noticing details like sounds, smells, and colors that we usually speed right by. It can teach us a lightheartedness that naturally leads to resilience, allowing longer or more frequent sits to not feel so intimidating and laborious. We become empowered and flexible with how we engage our practice, less likely to deprive ourselves of profound, beautiful moments simply because we want to avoid the boring ones.