What’s blocking your Right Intention? What seems to block you from intending goodwill and loving-kindness to others? Chances are it’s one of the three unwholesome roots: delusion, greed, and aversion.
Delusion is the inability to see things clearly. That’s what we’re trying to get away from when we practice Right View. When it comes to intention, delusion happens when we think we are always going to get what we want. This has never worked in the history of the world, and yet we continually feel disappointed by it. Delusion often means we’re making a situation about us that maybe just…isn’t. We get all wrapped up in our own story about what someone means or why a situation happened and this delusion takes us all the way down the river until we are just washed. up. When you notice your intentions this week, ask yourself if the story you’re telling yourself about what’s happening conveniently has you at the front and center…and whether that’s actually where you reside in this story.
Greed means feeling and acting entitled to get what we want. Another way to describe this is grasping. It’s when we have millions of dollars but we want billions. It’s when we don’t want to allow other people to have space to succeed, to be beautiful, to be talented, to be enjoyed at parties where we are also in attendance. Imagine greed like a frustrated toddler who can’t let anyone else have the toy he can’t have on the playground. It’s a form of me-me-me that moves us far away from a place of compassion. I wish we outgrew this as we get older but unfortunately most of the men running things right now prove otherwise. With your intentions, consider letting go and not forcing things, and see if that makes compassion easier.
Lastly, there’s aversion. Aversion can also be translated as hatred. Hatred means being angry we can’t have what we want, and angry when others have what we want. It’s close to jealousy. We can also see hatred as connected to greed. In greed, we try to grab something we want. In hatred, we try to avoid something we don’t want. They’re both power moves.
In all three of these unwholesome roots, we turn away from others. We protect ourselves. We live selfishly. So it shouldn’t surprise us that the answer is to return to the wisdom of right intention. Renounce what makes us feel stuck. Offer good will to everyone. Seek to be harmless in our words and actions. When we choose right intention, we turn toward each other.
This is actually how I define sin. I know, sin is a really loaded word for nearly everyone. It’s got such terrible baggage from misuse. But at its heart, sin is disconnection. It’s turning away, whether that means turning away from God, from others, or from our inherent goodness. When we disconnect in this way, negative and harmful things happen. That’s how we lose our focus on compassion and loving-kindness. Whatever is blocking right intention softens when we choose compassion instead.
This week, try to notice the story you tell yourself when you find yourself blocked from wishing others well. Are you making the story about you when it maybe isn’t? Are you grasping at something you don’t own or control? Do you have feelings of aversion or hatred that may point to something you are desperately trying to avoid?
This post is part of a series on practicing the Eightfold Path. You can read all the posts on right intention here.
