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Live Session Summary, Sunday, July 31, 2022:
Good to be with you today. The theme of this week’s Live session was, ‘Intention: Remembering What Matters Most.’ I began by speaking of my own experience: how I am able to focus well and accomplish things when they are important, interesting, or enjoyable to me. But when space opens up and there are fewer obvious priorities to give my attention to I can feel stuck, unfocused, and, at times, feel a sense of malaise and lack of direction. I’ve found that at these times reflecting on intention and what matters most is the most helpful path to finding my way out of these ‘stuck’ states.
I discussed what intention means and why it is important in freeing ourselves from painful or difficult mind states. Webster’s dictionary defines intention as ‘the determination to act in a particular way.’ Meditation teacher Gil Fronsdal speaks of intentions as ‘often more basic than what we want; they are the deeper purposes for why we want what we want.’ And Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who wrote extensively about ‘flow states’, said ‘intentions operate as magnetic fields moving attention toward some objects and away from others, keeping our mind focused on some stimuli in preference to others.’
This sense of intentions as ‘magnetic fields’ is a useful one in illustrating the way they help us gather our attention and other beneficial qualities to help move us towards what is important to us. When we are clear about and focused on what matters to us we are much more likely to both achieve our goals and be happy—if our objectives are not harmful ones. Conversely, when we are disconnected from our intentions, we are much more likely to be moved by our unconscious habits and neither move towards what’s important to us nor be happy. As Yogi Berra said, ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else.’ And Carl Jung: ‘What is not brought to consciousness, comes to us as fate.’
I spoke about three different understandings of intention in Buddhist teachings:
• Volition (Cetana, in Pali), a mental factor that urges the mind in a particular direction—e.g., the intention to stand up or look around
• Intention as ‘resolve’ or ‘determination’ (Aditthanna), which is one of the ten perfections (paramis), or qualities that support awakening
• Wise/right intention (Samma sankappa), the second factor of the Eightfold Path, which is intention directed towards freeing ourselves from suffering. This involves the cultivation of the intentions of 1) renunciation or letting go; 2) good will or loving-kindness; and 3) harmlessness or compassion.
Finding my way out of the ‘stuck’ state required all three forms of intention: 1) the volition or will to make a change and put in the effort to let go of the painful state; 2) the determination to stay focused and avoid sliding back into the difficult and unhelpful mind state; and 3) the intention to commit to letting go of the unskillful mind states when they arose and to meet my experience with self-compassion. One of the most significant changes I have seen is how cultivating wise intention can help us move from difficult and unpleasant mind states to palpably happier and more contented states.
I shared Zen teacher Suzuki Roshi’s saying, ‘The most important thing is to remember the most important thing’; Mary Oliver’s ‘When I am among the trees’; some lines from Shantideva’s Prayer; and ‘Lost’ by David Wagoner.
Please let me know if I missed anything or if you have any questions. I look forward to seeing you next Sunday, August 7 at 9am eastern for our 100th consecutive Sunday Live session. Please join us if you can—and have a lovely week. Warmly, Hugh 🙏🏼 🌻
