"You have been into all those trips before, nothing comes out of it. Boredom is the first indication that a great understanding is arising in you about the futility, meaninglessness, of life and its ways.

"Now, you can respond to boredom in two ways. One is what is ordinarily done: escape from it, avoid it, don't look eye to eye into it, don't encounter it. Keep it at your back and run away; run into things which can occupy you, which can become obsessions; which take you so far away from the realities of life that you never see boredom arising again.

"That's why people have invented alcohol, drugs. They are ways to escape from boredom. But you cannot really escape; you can only avoid for a while. Again and again the boredom will be coming, and again and again it will be louder and louder. You can escape in sex, in overeating, in music; you can escape in a thousand and one ways, but again and again, the boredom will arise. It is not something that can be avoided; it is part of human growth. It has to be faced.

"The other response is to face it, to meditate on it, to be with it, to be it. That's what Buddha was doing under the bodhi tree, that's what all Zen people have been doing down the ages.

"What exactly is meditation? Facing boredom is meditation. What does a meditator do? Sitting silently, looking at his own navel, or watching his breathing, do you think he is being entertained by these things? He is utterly bored! That's why the Zen master moves with a stick in his hand – because those bored people are bound to fall asleep. There is no other escape, so only one escape is left: at least they can fall asleep. They cannot escape. They have themselves, of their own accord, become part of the Zen training and the discipline – they cannot escape. But one escape is always available: you can fall asleep, then you forget all about it. That's why in meditation one feels sleepy.

"The whole effort in meditation is this: be bored but don't escape from it – and keep alert, because if you fall asleep you have escaped."