With good reason.<\/strong><\/p>\n You want to do something \u2013 anything \u2013 and you\u2019re just sitting there. You may wonder why, doing nothing. You\u2019re bored. Then in your mind you fill in things you could be doing. Or you just wander around in your mind, in search of anything that can take your attention away from this doing nothing \u2013 this \u2013 what you call \u2018meditation\u2019.<\/p>\n Being bored, is thinking you are doing nothing, together with an urge to do something \u2013 anything, to make you feel like you are using your time well. Actually, it\u2019s perfectly natural to not want to waste your time. Nature wants us to be productive. So if you\u2019re bored, do not feel ashamed. But\u2026<\/p>\n Boredom is not meditation.<\/strong><\/p>\n In other words \u2013 meditation is never boring. Still in other words \u2013 in order to meditate, you don\u2019t need to feel bored. Not at all. You may link both in your mind if you regularly force yourself to meditate and then boredom comes. Next time, whether you want to or not, you\u2019re expecting boredom. This expectation can be unconscious and quite powerful.<\/p>\n Counting breaths and other so-called meditation techniques are frequently recommended to stay focused in the present. True \u2013 but I think that in many cases they exist mainly to fight boredom \u2013 at least doing something.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re meditating and you feel bored, don\u2019t try to fight the boredom.<\/strong><\/p>\n Don\u2019t even try to push it away. Instead, focus your attention on the meditation itself. While meditating, your mind is active, only in a different way from usual. Really meditating, you are doing something very useful. If you have the impression that you\u2019re not, then it\u2019s important to know deep inside that you really are<\/em> doing something very useful. This knowledge by itself may keep you from boredom. Then try to find out what really is so worthwhile about meditation. That by itself may be to you the most important thing. Be honest. If you don\u2019t find it, try harder \u2013 try in other ways. If you still really don\u2019t find it, then stop meditating. You might come back to it later \u2013 not feeling bored anymore.<\/p>\n Eventually, you may come to understand that meditation, if done genuinely, is the center piece of your life. It\u2019s not another one of the many things to do. Everything else revolves around it.<\/p>\n Boredom is the feeling that comes with a lack of meaningfulness. If you aggressively fight<\/em> this meaningfulness, you may fall into a depression.<\/p>\n Contrary to this, genuine meditation is being in the state of meaningfulness itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n Like being in the very quiet center of a storm.<\/p>\n