I have a handheld compass that is about 40 years old. You know the kind, with the little, red-tipped needle floating in its house, always pointing to magnetic north. It seems a little old-fashioned. These days, hikers are more likely to use GPS built into a phone app to determine their location rather than a compass and map. I still find there is something reassuring about that little red needle that always points North. In the Buddha’s teachings, we have a compass in the second step of the Noble Eightfold Path: Right Intention or Sammā-Sankappa in Pali, sometimes translated as Right Thought. The Eightfold Path begins with Right View and, together with Right Intention, is considered the wisdom component of the path.
It makes sense in this location too. The steps that follow immediately constitute the morality section of Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood. Don’t we need to know the direction we are heading before we can take the steps to get there?
The three Right Intentions that make up this step are the intention of Renunciation or Nekkhama in Pali, the intention of Non ill-will, or Abyāpāda, and the intention of non-harming, or Avihimsa.
The English translation of the first intention of renunciation conjures a vision, perhaps, of a religious practice, such as giving up a pleasure for Lent or practicing daily fasting during Ramadan. But it’s also a subtler tool we use multiple times each day. Each time we catch ourselves idly surfing on our phones, we can choose to stop, to renounce the junk-food entertainment of the moment, and to get back to our intention to use our time wisely. Or perhaps we are intent on injecting our opinion into a conversation, but through the power of mindful awareness, discernment, and the intention of renunciation, we realize what we were going to say was not really that helpful and was actually motivated by our desire to appear smart and intelligent, in other words, a bit of an ego stroke. Mindfulness allows us to wake up to the present moment; discernment allows us to know whether our actions or speech are in the service of goodwill and non-harming; and renunciation, in this example, as non-selfishness, urges us to make the wise decision in the moment.
The next intention is Abyāpāda, literally “non-ill-will”. Written in that convention of some Indian languages to state an affirmation by negating its opposite, (a + byapada). The opposite of non-ill-will means the intention of goodwill or metta. It reminds us to cultivate and spread that openness of heart that lies at the core of the path. The inclusiveness of this heart-space of goodwill reminds us that as we direct our goodwill towards all beings, we’re included; we’re a being, too! How do we talk to ourselves in our inner dialog? The little red needle of this intention reminds us that we are worthy of non-judging and accepting ourselves as we are, just as we offer that to others.
The last of the three intentions, non-harming, is called Avihimsa in Pali, but it may be more familiar to us in its Sanskrit translation, Ahimsa. Ahimsa, when translated as non-violence, was one of the two guiding principles of one of the most powerful and effective social movements of the 20th Century, (the other guiding principle being the power of truth). Gandhi drew on the Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist principles of Ahimsa, and informed by Henry David Thoreau’s essay on Civil Disobedience, he created the movement that eventually secured India’s freedom from Britain. There are multiple examples of the power of non-violence in society, including in the Civil Rights Movement in this country, the South African anti-apartheid movement, the Solidarity movement that ended communist rule in Poland, and more. In the greater world, nonviolence has a way of cycling over and over again – because it works. How wonderful to have this heritage, to guide us in turbulent times.
Closer to home, in our practice, we take the intention of non-harming to be the guiding principle of speech, thought, and actions. The path steps of Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood, as well as the Five Precepts, are all derived from these intentions of non-selfishness, goodwill, and non-harmful speech and action. How fortunate we are to always have such a simple compass which points in one direction, to that which is wholesome, helpful, non-harming, and liberates us from greed, hatred, and delusion!