On boredom

'A Tantric Master, Trungpa, has written that some meditation should be boring, should be as boring as possible, because in intense boredom all our habitual responses and concepts are dissolved. The mind's terror of boredom is the most acute because the mind suspects that through boredom, through its extreme experience, another reality might be reached that would threaten its pretensions, and perhaps even dissolve them altogether' - quoted from Andrew Harvey's A Journey in Ladakh. At a time when the only difference between BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM is the frequency they are broadcast on, John Luther Adams' recently released Darkness and Scattered Light performed by bassist Robert Black is an object lesson in the extreme benefits of dissolving habitual responses and challenging comfort zones.

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