Wise Intention to the rescue!

Intention plays such an important role in our lives but so often we are completely unaware of what our intentions are in any particular endeavor.

If we look again at the Eightfold Path cooking pot analogy, we can see that Wise Intention is the flame that lights the fire that cooks the pot that creates the steam. Without that flame of intention, there will be no cooking tonight!

In all activity and non-activity we have motivations -- thoughts that provoke us, inspire us or give us an excuse to do something unskillful. These instigators are clearly not always wise, and the least wise aspect of them is that they are running around directing the show without our being conscious of them!

It’s easy to understand why Wise Intention is first and foremost to be aware, mindful, present in this moment, anchored in physical sensation. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the first of our paired intentions when we begin to meditate.

The second is to be kind. This kindness is not a thin layer of niceness but a deeply rooted and infinite well-wishing for all beings. You can’t fake this! But it does arise quite naturally through meditation. It even arises just when we slow down a bit in our lives.

Ever notice how when you've given yourself plenty of time to do your shopping, you have a pleasant time, get along with fellow shoppers and sales clerks, and you aren't bothered by anything? When we try to do too much in too little time, our motivation is neither to be present or kind but to be outtahere as fast as possible, and we can be ruthless in our mindless rush. The funny thing is that we are much more effective when we slow down and make time for enjoying being present. We make better decisions and fewer mistakes. We don’t have to go back to the store later for the thing we in haste forgot. We don’t have to appear in court or traffic school because of the speeding ticket we got. Slowing down and being present creates kindness, and it also creates more time!

When we talk about intention, you might remember that we looked at it in the Five Aggregates. It is one aspect of Volition, which also includes urges and impulses.

Intention is purposeful. But not all intention is mindful or kind, so we benefit by looking at our intentions in any given situation. You might think of a situation in your life where you feel you keep trying but never get anywhere. Perhaps you feel stuck in a motivational quagmire. You set a goal but never get there. When you slow down and pay attention to the motivations you try to inspire yourself with, you might find that these intentions aren’t sufficiently powerful. They are not rooted deeply enough to be truly inspiring.

Here’s an example:

“I had been gaining weight and knew it would be good to lose that weight, but it was difficult to find a compelling motivation. The strongest I had was that I wanted to fit in the clothes I had and not have to go out and buy the next size up. I also didn’t want people to think ill of me, that I had no will power. But I could also feel some motivations that kept me from losing weight: I knew people who got cancer and lost a lot of weight and it seemed like a good idea to have extra weight to lose. I was afraid that maybe if I lost weight I’d draw attention from unwanted sources. I’m a grandmother and my image of a good grandma is well-padded. And I had the feeling that I would look back and regret not having indulged myself while I had the chance to really enjoy treats I like. 

“But then I had a little medical scare and ended up in the cardiology ward of my hospital. Everything turned out to be fine, but the cardiologist told me I should lose some weight because that would be kind to my heart. 

“Kindness to my heart felt like one of my intentions in meditation. And the doctor’s words filled me with a strong sense of kind intention. I had never thought of being kind to my heart before, but now I saw the sense in it. 

“Then I realized that the other intention -- to be present in the moment, anchored in physical sensation -- is often lacking from my mindless grazing activity. I set these two intentions and feel much more solid in my plan to lose weight. As if I’d been wading around in a quagmire of confusing emotions and now had found a solid rock of Wise Intention to stand upon.”

You can see from this example that we make many unskillful choices in a mindless way, and this mindlessness can become an unkindness, sometimes even a cruelty, to ourselves or to others. We don’t realize it because we are mindless! With Wise Intention we set the stage to apply Wise Effort that is sustainable, and to see more clearly, helping us develop Wise View.

We look at the feelings we are experiencing and see that they are centered around a particular situation, problem, challenge or concern. We look to see if the cause of our suffering is the unskillful actions or words of ourselves or others.

When you look at an area where you struggle with motivation, perhaps you can see unskillful motivations that sabotage your intention. Perhaps all these conflicting motivations feel like a bit of a quagmire, dragging you down in the mud of muddled thinking.

Now look at where there might be an unkindness or even a cruelty involved that you may not have even considered before.

Reframe your intention in the form of our paired intentions at the beginning of meditation: To be present in this moment, anchored in physical sensation so that you are aware of what is happening and not getting lost in the quagmire; and to kind to yourself and to others. Because often our unskillful actions cause harm to others and in our mindlessness we conveniently ignore noticing how that happens.

If there isn't any specific challenge you are dealing with and you don’t feel there is any area in which you struggle in the quagmire of conflicting motivation, that’s great. But even so you can notice the motivation at the core of any situation or interaction. You can see if things turned sour at some point, and ask, ‘Okay, what was my intention in that interaction?’

Most of us do not examine our intentions.

If we did we might discover that our intention is to shore up our belief in a separate self and to deny the nature of impermanence.

Remember that formula of how dukkha (suffering) is created?

Denial of annica (impermanence) and annata (no separate self) creates dukkha.

When we hold on tight to the belief that we can somehow keep the world from turning, we suffer.

When we hold on tight to the belief that we are defined by this body-mind as a unique disconnected isolated separate self that needs to be puffed up, shored up, pointed out, admired, singled out, awarded, etc. rather than an intrinsic part of the ongoing and ever-changing whirl of life that thrives on the joy of that sense of connection, then we suffer.

Nothing to Fear, Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Prove

On a long silent retreat a few years back, I realized that I had nothing to fear, nothing to hide and nothing to prove. This was a deeply liberating insight for me. I made note of it and pinned it up on my bulletin board at home, and it’s a phrase I have turned to again and again. When we have these insights, these understandings, it is like we’ve given ourselves the key to unlock our patterns of suffering. Again and again, when my mind would be gnawing away at some personal dilemma, just repeating those words would once again free me.

So let’s look at the intentions we hold at times when we believe we have something to fear, something to hide and something to prove.

Believing we have something to fear is seeing the world as separate from us, a dangerous foreign place where there is no room for trust. Our intention is to protect our separate-seeming self, to hold back, to feel in control, to not reach out to others, to be cautious and wait for them to reveal their intentions first.

What happens when we act on that intention? Even if we think we are holding back, we are always putting out a certain quality of energy that is felt, so others read that resistance and react with caution or perhaps even aggression. By believing the world is an unsafe place, we make it unsafe for us..We put ourselves in the role of victim and those around us pick up on and possibly act on that.

Believing we have something to hide is seeing ourselves as separate and uniquely flawed, as if everyone else is somehow perfect, very different from us. We feel shame about the most universal experiences. We somehow believe we are unique in this, that everyone around us is as put-together as they appear when we see them walking about. We can’t imagine that they too have the same struggles and imperfections. We do ourselves such a disservice with this false belief.

What happens when we act on that intention to hide, protecting our natural beingness from view? We withdraw and don’t connect with others. It took me a long time to realize that it is in our very imperfections that we find connections with others. When we acknowledge our flaws, people relate, and in that moment there is warmth and interaction. When we are so perfectly polished, others believe us to be totally self-sufficient without any need of them, and that polished surface reflects back only judgments about them.

So by hiding our failings, we cut off connection. By being open (not over-sharing personal information, but just being the vulnerable beings we are) there is an ease and simple joy in being alive, all in this messy thing called life together.

Believing we have something to prove is also seeing ourselves as separate and in need of shoring up, to be ‘special’ in some way that will be admired and accepted.

What happens when we act on that intention? First, it’s a lot of work so we are exhausted from all that ambition! By having something to prove we set up a competitive rather than collaborative relationship with others. We cut ourselves off from true connection and joy. The comparing mind is very demanding and mostly miserable. Even accomplishments and accolades are difficult to celebrate, because there is such a sense of not-enough-ness.

So when we are stuck in a difficult situation and find ourselves struggling, we can pause in our struggles to look first at our intention. We can ask:

• What am I afraid of?
• What am I trying to hide?
• What am I trying to prove?

The answers to these questions will remind us that we are delusional to rail against the impermanence of life and to hold on doggedly to the belief that there is any separate self that needs shoring up. This exploration opens us to the very real possibility that we have nothing to fear, nothing to hide, and nothing to prove.

There is a last part of the insight I had on that retreat, and it is: I have something to give.

We each have something to give. All life does. There is no expression of the life force that isn't there to offer something. This recognition acknowledges the oneness of being, our intrinsic connection with all life, that every leaf on every plant has a role to play and so do each of us. This frees us to grow, explore and discover the nature of what we have to offer. We don’t have to struggle with it; we simply allow it to come forth in as natural a way as possible.

That recognition that we each have something to give allows our intention to be more wholesome, without the distortions of misunderstanding the nature of things that cause us to suffer.

Recently my beloved aunt told me that she and her boyfriend, both blind and feeling their advanced age, recognize that they are not just taking up space in life, that when they are just sitting there they often find they are listening to other people tell them their stories. This simple act of being present and listening is a form of giving, a generosity of time and attention. Perhaps it’s not the only giving we do, but it is a big part of it. If we are bringing our full attention to this moment, whatever this moment holds, and we are holding whatever is going on in kindness, then we are giving!

It is important to look at the motley assortment of motivations that drive us, acknowledge them as very human but essentially destructive, and to come home to the intentions to be present in this moment with whatever is going on, and to be kind to ourselves and others.

This is Wise Intention.

The Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path

We’ve been exploring the First and Second Noble Truths: the existence of suffering, dukkha, and the causes of dukkha. In the Third Noble Truth the Buddha says, hey, don’t worry, there’s a way out of this mess, and that way is the Noble Eightfold Path.

So here we are in the Fourth Noble Truth which is the exploration of the Eightfold Path, a comprehensive system of practices that helps us see where we’re suffering and offers very clear guidance to end it.

The Eightfold Path is traditionally divided into three types of practices:

• Wisdom practices, panna, are Wise View and Wise Intention.
• Virtue Practices, sila, are Wise Speech, Wise Action and Wise Livelihood.
• Concentration practices, samadhi, are Wise Effort, Wise Mindfulness, Wise Concentration.

This is the third go-round of teaching the Eightfold Path that you will find on this blog. The first time the aspects were all ‘Right’ -- Right View, Right Intention, etc. The second time I wanted to explore the quality of spaciousness that really helps us be able to handle whatever arises in our experience, so I emphasized this by calling the aspects Spacious View, Spacious Intention, etc.

This go-round is the first time we are approaching the Eightfold Path coming from the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, just as the Buddha taught it, and together we have been studying and practicing the Four Foundations of Mindfulness over the past year, so this time I think we are ready to give these eight aspects the label ‘Wise’ -- Wise, View, Wise Intention, etc. We have earned it!

But feel free to refer to posts from any of the previous iterations. They all work together.

What is most different about how I have evolved my teaching of the Eightfold Path is the creation of the analogy of a pot sitting on a campfire to help us better understand how these aspects work together, and what role each one plays.

Each aspect of the Eightfold Path is a vital part of what makes the whole thing cook. Everything needs to be there -- the match, the well laid logs and kindling, the pot, the contents of the pot. If any one of these is missing there will be no dinner! Just so, the Eightfold Path gives us a means to create a happy meaningful life, and a way to see where it’s not coming together. Did we forget the matches? Are the logs misaligned? Does the pot have a crack in it? Did we forget to fill the pot?

The main difference between the cooking pot analogy and the traditional way of looking at the Eightfold Path is that with the cooking pot analogy, the virtue practices of wise speech, action and livelihood arise as steam as a direct result of the coming together of the other practices.

While anyone would acknowledge that this is true, a good case can be made for entering the Eightfold Path by practicing, to whatever degree one is able, these virtue practices. But each teacher must adapt the teachings to his or her students. In my case, I teach a class of women of a certain age who have been practicing their own virtue practices for their whole lives, trying to do the right thing and say the right thing. The challenge for us needs to go a little deeper than simply being nice. Nice we’ve got covered. But there’s a big difference between being nice and being kind in a deep and caring way. So we will be looking at our deep intentions, and questioning how effective we are if our view is unwise, or our effort is unbalanced or our intention isn't clear, and how skillful can we be if we are mindless.

So we will approach these eight aspects in the order that will provide deeper understanding of their interrelated nature, and surest results of wisdom.

“I’m in an abusive relationship with life.” - Homer Simpson

We’ve been exploring the concept of dukkha, the suffering that can pervade our lives, or at least crops up from time to time. Dukkha is such a central concept to the Buddha’s teachings, I want to be sure we all understand it before moving on, because without understanding the nature of our unhappiness, how can we create happiness?

Many of us have habitual patterns of dukkha without even realizing it. We go through life mentally being the referee of others’ behavior. We are ever vigilant to call out a bad driver or an inconsiderate line-jumper or someone who just has a bad attitude. Is this useful? Effective? Does it cause happiness? Or is it just a pattern of ongoing critical thought that causes us and those around us suffering? (This is quite different from being in a situation you can actively do something about. We’ll talk more about that in our exploration of Wise Action in the Eightfold Path.)

If you recognize yourself in this description of a referee, consider this option: When you see someone doing something unskillful, recognize the mindlessness of their action. Recognize the dukkha they are dealing with. Recognize that you have at times also been mindless, maybe even in just the same way. Send metta, infinite loving-kindness, to that person, instead of judgment. This doesn’t condone their action, but it does acknowledge their humanity. Sending metta effectively short-circuits the counter-productive pattern of thought that makes you mindless as well, and lets you get back to the activity -- driving, for example -- that needs your full attention.

Here is a wonderful classic Buddhist story that illustrates the nature of referee dukkha.

Two monks were walking in the mountains and came upon a young woman on the bank of a river, in distress because it was too deep and rapid for her to safely cross. To the surprise of his companion, one of the monks offered to carry her across. She agreed. He picked her up and maneuvered across the river and deposited her safely on the other side. Then the monks continued on their way in silence.

Quite a while later the other monk said, ‘Brother, you violated a vow by carrying that woman across the river.’

The other replied, ‘Brother, I set that woman down over an hour ago. You are still carrying her.’

Isn’t that the way it is? The mind gets totally entangled in playing referee, in replaying a wrong, in judging the actions of someone else or ourselves, and we suffer. That’s the nature of dukkha.

Maybe you are not the referee. Not to worry, there are plenty of other ways to create dukkha in our lives. See if you find yourself in any of the following examples:

• The gardener who is only happy when everything is in ‘perfect’ bloom.
• The person who is devastated by what they see in the mirror because it isn’t the youthful face and figure they remember.
• The person who gets yelled at by a passerby on the street and takes it personally.
• The person who indulges to excess, then bemoans the painful consequences.

If you have been following along in previous posts, you might recognize that the first two illustrate not understanding or accepting the nature of impermanence. The third shows the lack of understanding ‘no separate self’, and the last one is how we create suffering through the addictive behavior of desire to 'change the channel' rather than simply be with what is in this moment.

When we know dukkha, we can name it in our experience. When we bring it to our attention, we are better able to release the tight patterns that bind and chafe us.

What experiences in your own life do these various examples bring up? When you find yourself suffering, pause to explore it. Instead of blaming it on a cause,condition or person, check in with how you are reacting to the cause or condition. This is not to blame yourself, but to look at the patterns of thought that arise again and again. The story of whatever is going on is not nearly so important as the noticing how you are relating to this story.

And whatever you do, give yourself metta. ‘May I be well. May I be happy. May I be at ease. May I be at peace.’ This process of noticing what’s going on, bringing yourself into the present moment, and then giving yourself and any others involved the warmth of universal loving-kindness, will go a long way to reduce suffering and create happiness.

New Page on Blog in Spanish

Look to you right on this page and you'll see at the bottom of the list of PAGES a new one titled COMO MEDITAR. If you, or someone you know, would be more comfortable learning basic meditation instruction in Spanish, please check it out and share the link to the page freely.

Dat Darn Dukkha

I always enjoy including this Uncle Remus tale when teaching and exploring the concept of dukkha. Now remember how Brer Fox was always out to catch Brer Rabbit? Well, this one day Brer Fox figured a sure way to get ‘em. He knew Brer Rabbit had a sociable nature and would always stop to talk to anyone in his path, so Brer Fox decided to build a trap with a lure in the form of a tar baby. He dipped some sticks in pitch mixed with turpentine, put them together and studded the figure with gewgaws until he figured it was gussied up enough to appeal to Brer Rabbit, then he stuck it along the road where he knew Brer Rabbit passed by on a regular basis, and hid himself behind a bush. He didn't have to wait long.

Soon enough Brer Rabbit came hopping on down the road - lippity-clippity, clippity-lippity, just as sassy as a jaybird - and spotted this dark alluring creature sitting there and stopped to say hello. But the tar baby didn't respond to his greeting. He tried to make civil conversation with her, and still the tar baby wouldn't speak. He asked her if she was deaf, because if so he could talk louder, but still she said nothing.

All the while, Brer Fox, he lay low, having some inkling how this would go. And sure enough, the next words out of Brer Rabbit’s mouth were angry. “Well, you’re just stuck up that’s what you are. I’m going to have to teach you how to talk to respectable folk.” He warned the tar baby, but the tar baby didn't respond, so Brer Rabbit pulled back and hit her on the side of her head.

But his fist got stuck and he couldn't pull it loose. The tar held him. Now Brer Fox had to stop himself from laughing out loud as he watched from behind his bush. “If you don’t let me loose,” Brer Rabbit said, “I’ll butt you!” She didn't. He did. And now his head was stuck too.

All the while the tar baby doesn't say a word, which makes Brer Rabbit even madder. “If you don’t turn me loose, I’ll kick the stuffing out of you!” She didn't, he did, and now his foot was stuck too. The more Brer Rabbit reacted to the Tar Baby, the more stuck he got. Sound  familiar?

This is how we are in our lives with our dukkha, the suffering we cause by the way we react to our experience. Perhaps there’s a person in our lives who brings out a lot of reactivity in us, and becomes our tar baby. We react, then we struggle to get free of all the dukkha that comes up around our reaction. But it doesn't have to be a person, this tar baby. It’s any situation, cause or condition to which we automatically respond with a set pattern of thoughts, emotions and behaviors that drag us deep into the tar of our dukkha.

How do we create the sticky tar of our suffering? That certainly wasn’t our intention. Or was it? It’s hard to know what our true intentions are without really paying attention to our experience. When we really are paying attention we might see that we hold some pretty dukkha-prone intentions.

This is something we have been discovering as we work with the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. One of the Five Aggregates is Volition, aka urges, impulses and intentions. We might not even know we have these intentions until we become more mindful. They are likely rooted in one of the Hindrances that we studied -- Desire, Aversion, Restlessness & Worry, Sloth & Torpor and Doubt.

Let’s talk about a few very common mostly-unconscious intentions many of us have:

The Need to Be Perfect

The strive for perfection is laden with dukkha. The tar is very thick when we get caught up in comparing ourselves to some ideal that is unattainable, not just by us, but by anyone. We can see now that there is a dangerous mix of Hindrances in that concoction of an intention to be perfect. There’s desire as well as aversion and a quality of self-doubt. There is the belief that unless we are perfect then we cannot be at peace, we cannot be loved or respected. It’s rooted very deeply the fear of disappearing because we hold ourselves to be separate, we hold ourselves apart from the wholeness of being, and we create misery for ourselves and others.

The Need for Approval

Another closely associated dukkha-prone intention is our desire to receive approval from others. Talk about self-doubt! Talk about worry! This intention throws us completely off-balance as we try to imagine what someone else wants from us, then from that flawed imagining, try to modify ourselves to suit. Striving

The intention to achieve great wealth, fame or success, in whatever form that takes for us is the hindrance of desire, lusting after something that will shore up this separate self we feel we must defend. Goal setting where the goal post is a bigger presence in our lives than what is happening in this moment creates dukkha -- a sticky place of disappointment, perhaps guilt over unskillful actions done in pursuit of our goal, and perpetual fantasizing.

Having Something to Prove

The intention to prove something to the world or to someone who once told us we could not achieve something can drive us even after that person is long gone. We internalize the words, never revisit the possibility that the person did not intend them as we took them, or even if they did it was coming from their own mindless dukkha misery.

But we still are stuck in the dukkha of reactivity. What hindrance or hindrances is this rooted in? There’s an anger there, maybe even hatred, so at least aversion, but probably other hindrances combined in that help to shore up that sense of separate self.

There are many more unexamined intentions that could be marketed as Deluxe Dukkha Delivery Systems because they are so effective at transporting us directly into deep sticky dense suffering.

So what happened to Brer Rabbit and his dukkha?

Well, when he was as thoroughly stuck as possible, Brer Fox came out from behind that bush. He couldn’t help laughing and gloating over Brer Rabbit’s predicament. And he made it clear he was going to barbeque him for dinner. Or maybe he would boil him. Hmm, he discussed his choices, and Brer Rabbit just kept telling him to go ahead and do that, but begged him, no matter what, to please not throw him in that briar patch. Old Brer Fox had some dukkha issues too. Even though he had his meal in hand, his desire to make Brer Rabbit suffer was greater than his hunger. So he pulled the rabbit off the tar baby and flung him into the briar patch. Once there, Brer Rabbit laughed and called out, 'Bred ‘n born in the briar-patch, Brer Fox-- bred ‘n born in the briar-patch!' as he used some handy briars to pick off the remaining pitch from his fur and went on his merry way.

Bred and born in the briar patch. Brer Rabbit freed himself from his tar baby dukkha dilemma by returning to his source, the place where he felt most comfortable in all the world.

So what is our briar patch? Where is the place in ourselves where we feel most at home, where we don’t have to defend ourselves or struggle? It’s ourselves fully relaxed in this moment, accepting ourselves as we are and this situation as it is in this moment, even if it is painful or challenging. This is the place where we are grounded, where the energy is spacious, joyous and supportive. It is a place of conscious awareness, of clear seeing and deep pure intention.

This is the place we come to know through sitting in meditation, through walking in nature in silence, through noticing moments of simple contentment in our lives. We rest in a state of gratitude for this moment of being fully alive.

For most of us these moments are fleeting. We enjoy them but then can’t help but wish they would stay longer, or that we would make ourselves available to them more often, and suddenly we've created a little tar baby to tangle with.

At these times maybe we can remember Brer Rabbit and get ourselves back to our briar patch – back to noticing the rising and falling of our breath, the sensations in our body, and the light in our surroundings. Because we were born in this state of being fully present, and we can return to it through our intentions to be present in this moment, anchored in physical sensation, and to be compassionate with ourselves when we discover that we’re stuck in the tar of dukkha yet again.