The Power of Wise Intention

Wise Intention is the bedrock of both elegant communication and grounded living.

This topic is addressed in two of my books, Half Asleep in the Buddha Hall and The. Best. Relationship. Ever.

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I want to give a shout out to Lion’s Roar, and to the arti­cle How to Prac­tice Wise Inten­tion, writ­ten by Sylvia Boorstein.

So, what exactly is wise intention and why would I want some?

To put this in con­text, in Bud­dhism The Four Noble Truths, or per­haps more clear­ly, the 4 Pre­em­i­nent Real­i­ties, are the 4 Descrip­tors of the way it is.

You can read about this in Half Asleep in the Bud­dha Hall, but the gist is that we real­ize, end­less­ly, the unsat­is­fac­tori­ness of the life we cre­ate, and we try to cling to what we judge is good while resist­ing what we judge to be bad.

The way out, we learn: 

…of this cycle is through ces­sa­tion (nirod­ha). If I stop desir­ing, (through the dis­ci­plin­ing and emp­ty­ing of the mind) and live in the Now (because desire is always about want­i­ng (or avoid­ing) what I had in the past or want­i­ng (or avoid­ing) some­thing in the future), my sense of unsat­is­fac­tori­ness (suf­fer­ing) will cease.

The cure proposed by the Buddha, is magga—the Eightfold Path of ‘sound living, one of which is “wise intention.”

On the “west­ern side,” there are a cou­ple of real­ly pop­u­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion mod­els, and they fea­ture 5 ele­ments: per­cep­tion, feel­ing, inter­pre­ta­tion, inten­tion, and action. 

I guess wise intention is important! 😉

Inten­tion is real­ly the check point… it’s like a safe­ty valve… for how your life goes. We use it in the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Mod­el to state clear­ly what we will do. It becomes a safe­ty valve as you ask yourself,

Is this (result) what I intend? 

Let’s say I’m annoy­ing myself in a sita­tion and I react by yelling. The sit­u­a­tion spins into anger and recriminations. 

At any point (prefer­ably just ahead of yelling…) I ask myself, “Is this action (yelling) get­ting me what I say I want? (my intention)”

The Thing about inten­tion is that it requires (as, real­ly, does all of this approach) that I pay atten­tion, con­stant­ly. I can’t get over myself and find a ground­ed way of being if I’m tuned out.

The key here is to remember that all I have control over is myself. 

Oth­er peo­ple are doing what they are doing, and none of what they are doing is about me. They are react­ing, or choos­ing not to react. But all I have to work with is what is direct­ly in front of me.

And my intention.

If my inten­tion is to live the eight­fold path… if my inten­tion is to have deep and mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ships, then I must set my inten­tion as: 

do no harm. Pay atten­tion. Act so that each sit­u­a­tion has a chance to blos­som. Clear my mind from blame and judgement. 

In oth­er words, I am total­ly respon­si­ble for the only thing I can be respon­si­ble for… how I am in the world. How, in oth­er words, I act.

Notice I did­n’t say think. Up in my head I may still be yelling, judg­ing, curs­ing. (Know­ing me, I am!) This is just how my mind is. I need to see it and acknowl­edge it to myself (and to oth­ers who might be curious.)

But the key… the only impor­tant thing, is this: giv­en this sit­u­a­tion, and despite what’s going on in my head, what shall I do?

And the answer ought to be: I will act in accor­dance with my belief in the ben­e­fit of being present, col­lect­ed, and aware. In all things, to bring, and be, peace.

Simple, eh?