As we know, it’s traditional to set intentions at the start of a new year. If we have taken on this custom, we may have consciously written down a list of what we will do and how we will change. We may have tried our best to stick with it as the first few months of the year went by. We also may have forgotten we ever even wrote the list. The list-making seems to me to be a way to make ourselves feel better—I’ll do it differently this time—and then making ourselves feel worse because of failing again and again to live up to our intentions. Up and down, up and down, and not ever finding our way out.
The Buddha’s way of looking at things is different than this inner seesawing. It is a teaching of great forgiveness. Forgetting is ok. We don’t give up and chastise ourselves because we have forgotten. We make peace with the reality that we will surely forget countless times and we learn that our practice is to simply begin anew. We realize that habit energy is very strong and that we must be very humble. Again and again, we must be humble and gracious about this whole endeavor of being human in an ever more confusing world.
The teachings of the Buddha emphasize intention—in fact it is one of the noble eightfold path factors. There are only eight, and intention is one, which shows how deeply valued it is on this path of awakening from habits of greed, hatred, and delusion. Intention is the key to the path as a whole because without intentionality, we are just blown around by our conditioning. Everything depends upon intention.
Rather than making intentions such as getting more exercise, the Buddha’s teaching with regard to intention helps to refine the direction in our lives. Intentions are not content based, such as going to the gym, but rather lights to guide our moment-to-moment experience. The three wise intentions to encourage and act upon are: letting go, loving-kindness, and compassion. The unwise intentions to be aware of and to allow to dissolve are: clinging, hatred, and cruelty, or the effort to control.
To look at these more closely, we also might look at our beliefs. Do we think it is almost immoral to let go when the world is in such dire straits? Or can we see that letting go opens to a greater sense of love and joy that can be shared with the world? Do we think we have to hold onto our hatreds and resentments because people are so deluded and wrong that doing so is justified in some circumstances? Or do we expand our vision and understand that although some people are indeed totally deluded and wrong, we create more distress by complaining about this obvious fact. Can we instead contribute greater sanity by sustaining the intention of loving-kindness? Are our efforts to control effective in the ways we might want them to be, or would compassion be a wiser response?
This year—this moment—asks for our utmost dedication. The world is burning, as the Buddha said 2,600 years ago and we must love it as it is, staying steady within ourselves. We are practicing together, as a sangha, and can encourage one another on the path. Let’s walk it together, come what may.