Don’t act with a twist. That’s one of the fifty-nine slogans called lojong or mind training. The purpose of these slogans is to keep us on the path, and offer us clarity. I find myself thinking a lot about this particular lojong slogan this month while practicing Right Intention. I think it gets to the heart of what we’re trying to do and learn.

Don’t act with a twist is a way to keep us from being tricky with our actions. For example, we offer to help someone, but we do it because we want them to help us with something in return. Or, we’re nice to someone because we’re trying to look good to the person they’re with. Or we smile and acquiesce to someone’s request and then turn around, roll our eyes, and sigh loudly.  It’s not a straightforwardly honest interaction. There’s a twist.

If you stop to think about it, you may notice to your horror that you act with a twist far more than you think you do.

Right Intention is about eliminating the twist. We just do the right thing, the good thing, the wise thing, without considering whether it will benefit us or not. When we have pure intentions, we don’t focus on outcomes. True goodwill does not come with a tally sheet.

Not acting with a twist is another example of the unwholesome root of delusion that I discussed in the last post. Lama Surya Das says self-absorption is a veil of delusion that distorts everything. So any time we focus our intentions on what we are going to get out of something, we’ve already lost our clarity. And we’ve twisted whatever good is in the intention.

This weekend, notice whether you’re acting with a twist. When you catch yourself in the act, ask yourself how you can be more direct in your intentions the next time around.

This post is part of my Eightfold Path project. You can read all my posts on Right Intention here.