Interesting is boring, boring is interesting.

A spiritual teacher, took his students to a Japanese tea drinking ceremony. Afterwards the students, said how wonderful it was. How the experience was so up lifting, so enriching, such an interesting ritual, and went home loaded down with trinkets.

They had missed to point. They were just there to drink tea. Just sit.

We tend to over elaborate, and miss the essence of the moment. We want something more interesting, and of course this becomes just another addictive insatiable pass time we have written into our script!

What is seen as boring holds the nature of originality – the origin – essence. Which can be manifested or not.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with grumpiness, depression or being dissatisfied. Because things no longer satisfies, does not mean we or those around us are wrong. It’s just time to move on, otherwise we may find our self arguing and feeling guilty. We will probably get kicked out anyway! I should know.

This is the process:

On every rung of the ladder, the same words are used but the meaning is different, more profound.

At every rung perception changes. There comes a moment when things no longer feel right, but maybe you cannot explain it or feel free to express it.

Let’s take the negative emotions.

1.  On the first level, the emotions are said to be bad. So one does not allow them in. “Do not get angry”. This is good, but the anger still arises. You may even be told to stay away from negative people. So you practise even harder, and the anger still arises. And you feel guilty. “Do not feel guilty,” they say. “Ok, I will try harder.” It gets tiring, and you tie yourself in knots. This approach is good, for some.

2.  On the next level, you can apply an antidote to the negative emotions. For anger, apply compassion, for pride apply equality and so on. This is good, this works. But it is still a only a temporary fix. The emotions still arise. So you try harder. You work so hard you now protected yourself from all angles. You are truly skilful. Alas pride and complacency wells up. This is difficult to let go of.

3.  On the next level, the emotions can now be transformed into wisdoms. They can be used. Anger becomes mirror-like wisdom, Desire becomes discriminating wisdom, Jealousy becomes all-accomplishing wisdom, Pride becomes wisdom of equality and Ignorance becomes wisdom of spaciousness. ( Take pride. You feel better than others, this feeling just arises. it’s ok! Now you see that everyone else can also have those skills. Take jealousy. You feel others are better than you, it’s ok! Now you see that you too can have those qualities. Even more importantly, the very moment you see good qualities in others, they are in you. How else could you recognise them! And so on..)

4.  On the next level, it is realised that the negative emotions never existed in the first place. It’s like a thief entering an empty house.

This is how we change. So we can start to see that the interest in trivial pursuits, is just a distraction, to the real job in hand.

The quote about being original, and looking to the origin came from Leonardo da Vinci. He was really boring!!!

It’s all there waiting for you – “Tears of unshakable boring joy.”

Tony