If we want to practice Right Intention, we’re going to have to change the pegs. The Buddha said if we want to replace unwholesome thoughts with wholesome ones, we act like a carpenter who hammers in a good peg for a rotten one. One by one, with your thoughts throughout the day, you just…change the pegs. Most of our thoughts come to us unbidden. They’re just old patterns of mind, old habits, popping up again and again. If we want to change our patterns, we’re going to have to put a little elbow grease behind it. We need to pick up our mental hammers, knock out the old rotten peg, and hammer in a new one instead. Soon, the pattern will become wholesome- both in wholeness, and in wholeness of thought.
I like the simplicity of this teaching because it reminds us that all of this mental work does have some oomph behind it. We do need a little momentum if we want to practice right intention. We can’t just think happy thoughts. (Good luck with that, anyway.) More importantly, we learn to let go of unkind ones. Unfair ones. The harmful ones that lack goodwill and loving-kindness. We hammer them out, and sometimes it becomes a little bit like a game of Whack-a-Mole. Some days it’s very noisy with the mental hammer. But we can take heart that we’re doing the important work of breaking up old patterns with all of the commotion. And the new pattern won’t need quite as much demolition as it will need maintenance.
Since this is the last post for our month of practicing Right Intention, (Friday I’ll introduce Right Speech!) I want to remind you of the metta practice we learned earlier, which is a form of prayer that allows us to actively change the pegs. I’m posting it again below, and I hope you’ll continue to practice it on occasion even as we move forward.
This week, where can you practice changing the pegs?
METTA MEDITATION
- Use the phrases below as mindful prayer.
- Begin by praying them for yourself. Then continue the phrases while imagining a loved one, then a neutral person, then (if you feel ready) someone you find difficult. Close by holding a desire to send lovingkindness to all.
May I be safe.
May I be happy.
May I be at peace.
***
May s/he be safe.
May s/he be happy.
May s/he be at peace.
***
May all be safe.
May all be happy.
May all be at peace.
You’re reading a post in my series on the Eightfold Path. Find all my posts on Right Intention here.
