Wise Intention: Purpose

We are unpacking the practices for the end of suffering. These wonderful eight practices that we engage in and they begin changing how we are regardless of the conditions of our life. My intent, which is todays topic, is to support the welling up of these practices within us. The eightfold path is a prescription of what to do and also presented as a description of what liberated people are like.

Transcript

I'd like to start this inquiry this morning with a quote.

Don't ask yourself what the world needs.

Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

I failed to put down in my notes who wrote that but I think it was Justice Thurman.

I know it was a Supreme Court Justice or I recall that it was.

Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

So we are unpacking the practices for the end of suffering and these are the wonderful practices,

Eight practices that we engage in and they begin changing how we are.

They allow us to live more contented,

More settled even with the changing way things are the conditions of our lives regardless really of the conditions of our lives and we're going through them in a slightly untraditional way and my purpose,

My intent which is today's topic is to support the welling up of these practices from within us.

They're described that way that the eightfold path is a prescription of what to do and they're also presented as a description of what liberated people are like,

This welling up.

So on Tuesday we looked at wise view and how wise you really relates to meaning.

This understanding is that in our daily life we view our view of direct experience is also imbued with the meaning that we give it.

So to maintain clarity of mind we also need to be aware of the way in which we add our perspective,

We add our frame of reference and I talked a little bit about taking a backward step so as not to add anything additional.

The most useful frame of reference for understanding our experience of right view is really simply that our actions,

The things we do have consequences so we want to take care of our actions.

So one of the main purposes for mindfulness practice is to be able to cultivate a strong mind that's able to track much more carefully what goes on in the present moment and particularly what goes on in our own minds.

It's in our own minds that we create our actions where we set in place the conditions that play out.

So intentionality,

Actions and karma are really closely connected topics and the working of our mind is very much shaped by our intention.

The quality of the mind which we act on,

Which we speak with.

So classically they say that what creates the momentum of karma is the intention behind what we do.

It's not the action but the intention that is the source of karma.

So to really get at the heart of the karma teaching is to learn how to act differently in the present moment where the choice is to sort of construct things differently.

So for example generosity,

Acting ethically,

Compassion,

Equanimity,

These are all actions that are constructing a better self,

A better disposition and by better I mean supportive to our life and to our practice.

So if our purpose is freedom from pain,

From reactivity,

From clinging,

It's really useful to pay attention to the way that we're reactive.

Where are we holding in our life?

Where's their pain or the squeeze on the heart?

I really appreciate that teaching that I recently received that Dukkha is like a squeeze on the heart.

So if you have a sense of purpose and intention,

That purpose kind of is like having a flashlight in the dark.

It casts light.

It helps us to make decisions about things we want to do,

Kind of how to practice or what to focus on and then to support that sense of purpose.

So for example the intention that I have when we meet every three times a week is to bring these 2,

500 year old teachings to you in a way that makes sense and are easier to integrate into our modern everyday life.

The purpose,

How I do that is by keeping it really simple.

Breaking down the practices,

Using language that's simple,

Techniques that are simple to remember.

And there are some teachings that are not easy to break down,

Not easy to understand.

I'm thinking about the teachings of not self or dependent origination.

Sometimes they're harder to comprehend.

So in those cases my intention is the same,

To bring these teachings,

To bring benefit.

That's sort of how I set the direction.

But then I kind of have to get out of the way.

I have to let go of the purpose of how it lands for you.

I'll do my best to make it simple but if there's some complexity to it I have to accept that too because it's easy to fall into clinging around it,

To get heavy around it,

To get bogged down.

One of the dangers or it's kind of a strong word but one of the shortcomings of having a sense of purpose is that we can spend too much time trying to fix everything,

To tinker with it,

Make it perfect.

So there can be a lot of expectations around this goal that we may have.

And what can happen in the mind is well I'm not living up to my purpose.

I'm not doing well enough.

So then we create this measurement.

But one of the ways that I have heard and understand sort of wise intention and purpose is that it's more like if I want to drive north on the freeway then I need to what I need to do is to keep checking that the sun if it's setting is setting on my left because that way I know that I'm heading in the right direction.

So the practice of wise intention is like checking where the sun is.

It's a way to make sure that my actions and my life are going in the direction that I want.

Whereas sometimes purpose becomes more of a command.

It's just no just checking over our shoulder.

Oh yeah,

Still heading in the right direction.

Our intentions shape how we live our life.

I did an interesting practice a couple years ago,

I think maybe three or four years ago.

And what I did was over the course of a year I would ask myself what is my deepest intention?

Like what is the sense of purpose that I want to base my life on?

And the most important discovery for me in that year of asking this question was how easy it was for me to lose touch with it.

How easy it was to get busy with life and those superficial aspects of life that pull me away from this deeper sense of purpose.

You know when we look we notice how much time is spent far from remembering what really matters to us.

Sometimes we're just so attuned to our doing,

Having the life that we want.

That when we ask this deeper question,

What is my deepest intention?

The natural response is well I don't know.

I don't know what my intention is.

And that's actually good news because it's really honest.

So intention and exploring our purpose.

And just to say that in this Buddhist practice what we do is actually much less important than how we do it.

For many people their sense of purpose in life and in their intention has a lot more to do with how they live their life than what they're actually doing.

For some people it doesn't matter what job they have or what they're doing with their time.

What matters is they're doing it with integrity.

They're doing it with care for themselves,

Care for others,

With compassion,

With love and generosity.

Those qualities of care are the intent,

The purpose and they shape our speech and our life.

So how we do things might have a bigger impact on our long term happiness than what you do.

So as we come to a close and go into discussing this maybe ask yourself right now as you sit here what is our intention right now for this day ahead?

Just start where you are.

Start with the more immediate.

What's on the surface more?

What is your intention right now?

Reviews

Superbly helpful distillation of the dharma 🌟 Thank you.