This month, we will practice the second step on the Eightfold Path: Right Intention. The wheel of the Eightfold Path comprises three sections: wisdom, morality, and consciousness. Right View and Right Intention together make up the “wisdom” section of the wheel. When these combine, they counteract what the Buddha called the three unwholesome roots: delusion, greed, and aversion. (I’m sure those will come up again as we continue to walk this path.) When we practice Right Intention, we choose to inspect the unwholesome roots of our thoughts. A well-known passage in the Dhammapada sums up the Buddha’s teaching on Right Intention very clearly:
The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character;
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings…
As the shadow follows the body,
as we think, so we become.
Our thoughts can serve as shadows, both on the path we seek to walk and as the residual effects of what we’ve done. And, just like our shadows, we cannot separate ourselves from our thoughts. So the goal instead is to find a skillful way to work with them, so that our thoughts bring about the most amount of good possible. This is why it is also sometimes called Skillful Thinking. We bring a skillfulness to our minds, and practice self-reflection on our thought patterns. This is especially important for our negative thoughts, because until we see where and why they arise, we won’t likely have much luck in changing them. But of course, we don’t want to focus solely on the negative. So the Buddha wisely instructed that we begin with what we hope to do with our thoughts. With intention itself!
Traditionally, the Buddha taught that Right Intention has three central properties:
- renunciation
- good will
- harmlessness
Over the next three posts, I will dive into each of these in depth. But for now, here’s a brief overview. Renunciation relates to the Four Noble Truths. Because clinging creates suffering, renunciation creates freedom. Because we recognize everyone suffers, we offer good will and wish that all may be free from suffering. And because we don’t want to do anything to cause suffering, we seek to live harmlessly toward others. The Buddha says that if we pay attention to these three forms of intention, we will likely find all we need to work with our minds for more positive outcomes.
As we think, so we become. This is the wisdom of right intention in a nutshell. This week, can you practice being aware of what thoughts precede your actions?
Also consider starting each day this week by simply reading the teaching from the Buddha above. It’s a helpful reminder as we begin our day that our thoughts and intentions are worth cultivating well.
