Setting Intentions In The Right Order

In this excerpt from our Weekly Sangha on IT, we discuss the importance of having your intentions in the right order, making sure your most important intention is an internal one, and when you make that the priority everything else will flow from there.

Transcript

I thought I would share something.

I was just doing a retreat on the new moon,

So we did last night and this morning,

On intention setting.

And,

And so all of you,

Or most of you know that have done,

Been meditating with me for a while,

I always ask this question,

What it is that's most important to us?

It's the most important question in the world.

If we don't know the answer to it,

We're not likely to move closer to it.

In fact,

Just the opposite,

We're more likely to get distracted,

Distracted by the world,

Distracted because other people are just pulling us in different directions.

And,

And if we're not clear on the direction,

Then it's just so easy to get lost.

And so I asked this question of us almost every meditation,

And,

And it's to keep the intention close in your mind.

And,

And the second question also about what things you can be doing,

And not to worry about if you're not ready to give up something,

Or you're not ready to start doing more of something,

But just identifying it.

Because we're planting seeds every time we do this.

And I think sometimes when we get around intention setting,

We get so rigid and grasp at them,

And I've got to do this differently.

And we try and use willpower,

Which is a very fleeting,

I mean,

If we just look at it from a biological perspective,

The willpower in our prefrontal cortex,

It's so fleeting,

It's so fragile,

It's a terrible way to make change.

It'll last until about six o'clock,

And then you'll be in the kitchen,

Grabbing the donuts or something.

So,

You know,

By,

By asking this question,

By continuously asking the question,

By continuously looking at our lives,

Being honest with ourselves,

Right,

We're not having to tell anyone the answers,

But being honest with ourselves about the way that we're spending our time.

And,

And what things are taking us further away from what we most want,

And what things are bringing us closer.

And with that awareness,

You,

You,

You will find just one day you're,

You're reaching for your phone and you think,

No,

I'm not going to reach for my phone.

I can feel that little need,

That little itch for something outside of me,

And I'm just,

It's coming now through wisdom,

You're putting it down for the right reasons,

Not gritting your teeth,

Not white knuckling it,

Like,

No,

There's something I want that's more important than this.

Or if you're,

You're getting overwhelmed,

You're,

You're socializing a little bit too much,

There's too much on your plate.

And that recognition,

Like,

I'm not feeling good,

I feel like I'm moving further away,

And I need to slow down a little bit,

I need to say no to a few things,

Because by saying no to these things,

I'm saying yes to what it is that's most important.

And so by asking this question continuously and not getting attached to,

To the actual actions of it,

The,

Your actions naturally will,

Will start to align with your intention,

They will naturally start aligning.

And then you're pointed in the right direction.

And so it's really important that we understand what our highest intention is.

Because sometimes in our intention setting as well,

We tend to get the order wrong.

So when I asked the question,

What is it that's most important,

And I'm always pointing you inwards,

An internal intention,

Peace,

Connection,

Love,

Equanimity,

Contentment,

Belonging,

Like something an internal.

And even when I say love,

Not love,

Depend not like what we would consider romantic love,

Or love dependent upon another person,

Love that universal feeling that we are all connected.

All of these things really pointing to the same thing.

And yet,

Of course,

All of these words inadequate,

But pointers,

Pointers for us.

And so I'm always saying like,

That's the most important,

But that doesn't mean that we can't have secondary,

Tertiary,

You know,

Other goals,

Other intentions that we want to experience in the external world,

That's okay.

Right?

But the problem is that we tend to put the other,

The external intentions higher than our internal intentions.

So we tend to,

It might be that you want to write a book,

Or you want to get healthy,

Or you want to travel,

You want to start a new business,

You want to learn a new language,

A new sport,

A new activity.

And there's nothing wrong with any of those things.

But if we were to ask you,

Why do you want to travel to write a book to to become healthy?

You know,

Why do you want these things?

The answer would be because you think it's going to give you some sense of fulfillment,

Some sense of peace of contentment of feeling whole.

And of course,

None of these things can give you that.

They're just fleeting experiences that we have.

And if we think though,

That they can bring us peace and contentment and love and a sense of belonging and being wholeness,

The problem is that we will get very disappointed.

Because when it doesn't deliver,

Then we just jump right back on the treadmill looking for the next thing.

So when we get the order,

Right,

When we put peace,

Contentment,

Love,

Equanimity,

Connection,

When we put that as our primary intention,

That's our number one intention,

And we take care of that first,

All of the other intentions then become more,

By putting them in that order,

And taking the pressure off of them to deliver something to us,

They become the experiences that they are meant to be.

If you want to write a book,

Great,

Write a book for the experience of writing a book.

If you want to travel,

Fantastic,

Travel for the experience of travel,

Not because you think there's a little you that's going to be found in Thailand,

That is going to be happier than the you that is here now,

That is going to somehow be fulfilled over there.

If you want to be healthy,

Great,

Be healthy,

Make better food choices,

Workout for the experience of being healthy,

Because these are all of the external,

Everything external,

They're experiences,

They're experiences to be had,

As long as we know what is most important,

The peace,

Because if we're not taking care of what's most important,

Then we won't even enjoy fully these things.

We know this,

Right,

We know this,

We go and do these things having our intentions in the wrong order,

Getting frustrated,

Being disappointed,

Being irritated,

But when you take care of the peace and you take the pressure off of all of these external experiences,

Then they just become adventures.

Yeah,

It's an experience to be had.

All of our experiences,

It's all part of the adventure.

The adventure of Leslie,

Of Cees,

Of Rosa,

Of Mari,

Of Nancy,

Of Kathy,

Of Jim,

It's all part of the adventure.

And when we have our priorities in order,

When we know that our primary intention is peace,

And all of our secondary intentions are on the external,

The experience,

The adventure,

All of our intentions become impersonal,

Non-egoic.

And when our intentions,

Our desires,

I could even say,

When they are impersonal,

We are aligned with the universe.

Because the universe,

We are a part of the universe,

We tend to think of ourselves as not we tend to think of ourselves as not part of it.

But we are,

Every single one of us is a part of the universe,

Experiencing itself,

Having the adventure.

And when we understand that,

That the peace taking us out of the thought created me,

The egoic,

The the my personal desires,

We come into the flow and the peace and the harmony in alignment with the universe,

The universe that we are,

We enjoy the adventure.

We see when the paths are take,

We're going down one path,

Yay.

Okay,

Maybe another path opens up over here.

Because again,

When they become non-egoic,

When they become impersonal intentions,

Our eyes are open,

Our whole field of vision is so much wider.

We're using our senses,

We're seeing what's going on,

We're not trying to drive something down,

You know,

Make something happen,

Put a square and a round hole.

We're paying attention.

And we're enjoying the ride.

And that doesn't mean that,

Of course,

That we don't experience at some point,

At times that we don't experience unpleasant things,

Because of course,

We can't experience the world without contrast.

Up,

Down,

Hot,

Cold,

Pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Comfortable,

Uncomfortable,

Praise criticism,

Gain loss.

We can't experience the world without contrast.

But when we're not grasping at some future thing over here,

Externally based,

Externally based,

My happiness over there,

When we're not grasping at that,

When we experience the unpleasant conditions,

And we know what's most important,

My peace,

We don't push back on it.

Because we haven't put all this pressure that my peace,

My happiness was over there,

It was never over there.

It was always right here.

And these are part of the conditions for how I experience the world.

We couldn't experience it any other way,

And nor would we want to.

But we have such a hard time trusting this,

Trusting the process.

We so want to get to,

Just tell me how it's going to end though.

I can enjoy the ride,

If you'll tell me that this will all work out.

I could go and enjoy the movie,

If I could see the last 10 minutes first.

If I could read the last few pages of the book,

Then I could enjoy the whole book.

I mean,

That's not how we enjoy books.

It's not how we enjoy movies.

We want to see the adventure.

We want to see things happening.

We want to have a certain amount of challenges.

It's how we grow.

It's the unpleasant experience that make the pleasant experiences so pleasant.

If we only ever experienced pleasant after a while,

It would just mean nothing.

It would be so boring.

We wouldn't enjoy it.

But it's the trusting the process that we have such a hard time with.

We just,

We're so grasping at wanting to know how it's going to turn out.

And even in that,

In the grasping at that one,

We remember what's most important is the peace.

Oh,

Peace.

Oh,

I'm grasping again.

Oh,

Yeah.

Come back.

Breathe.

Okay.

Take care of this moment.

If you take care of this moment,

The minutes,

The hours,

The days,

The weeks,

The months,

The years,

They will all take care of themselves.

And it all starts with that intention.

Nurturing the right intention,

The internal intention,

And all the other intentions,

The external intentions,

They all flow from that primary intention.

That's what's most important.

Nurturing our seat,

The right seat of intention,

Nurturing in the right order.

Trusting the process.

Letting go.

And just take care of this moment.

The rest will take care of itself.

Everyone says,

Most people say,

Oh,

I just want to,

You know,

I want to flow.

I want to know that the universe is going to support me.

And while things are going well,

You know,

Oh,

Yes,

Yes,

Everything's working out.

So it must be supported.

It must be supported.

But the moment we find a little challenge,

We go right back to the grasping.

So we have to be really clear about that.

We have to be clear about the world that we're living in.

And I know for some people,

They think this kind of sounds depressing,

That we should experience challenges,

That we should experience unpleasant moments.

It's reality.

It's reality.

You would not,

I mean,

The joy,

Even just that little joy that comes from you've been on a long flight and your body's all cramped up and just getting up,

Out of the seat,

Walking off the plane,

Right?

Just,

Oh,

Feels so good.

You wouldn't have had that without the unpleasant.

We can't have extraordinary moments.

They would,

Extraordinary would mean nothing without ordinary.

Right?

All the mundane moments that we talked about on Sunday Sangha,

Right?

Most of our existence is mundane moments.

But out of all those mundane moments,

When we're paying attention,

When we know what our highest intention is,

Our internal intention,

You find little moments,

Many more moments of joy that you would not have noticed otherwise,

If you weren't present.

Little moments that are extraordinary,

The moments of awe,

The moments of wonder that are there.

Not continuous,

But they're there.

They poke their little head out and it's like,

Oh,

Okay.

But coming back and really getting familiar with this feeling of non-grasping inside of us,

This feeling of spaciousness,

Of ease.

We're so used to being in that grasping,

Craving mode.

We think it's normal.

That's why it feels so unfamiliar to us,

The peace.

When we come back,

It's like,

Oh,

I can't stay here too long.

Because I'm holding everything together up here.

You're not holding anything together.

You're just not knowing the peace that is here.

You're getting distracted.

Not following your highest intention.

That's always a good cue.

Feel that tightening.

Whoops.

You're thinking again,

Something's out there.

It's the experience to have in each moment,

The adventure.

Let all of it flow through you.

Enjoy it.

Enjoy the good times.

When the unpleasant times are arising,

Don't grasp at it.

Don't push back on it.

It might just be unpleasant for a while.

It might just be unpleasant.

There's nothing else opening up.

But good for you to experience that.

Makes us stronger,

Makes us tougher,

Makes us wiser,

More compassionate.

But maybe,

Again,

Maybe another path is opening up that we could also be open to when something's going,

Oh,

The flight's canceled.

Okay,

Don't freak out.

What are we going to do?

Let's take a few breaths.

The adventure is still going.

Let's see.

Maybe you are stuck in the airport all night.

Or maybe something else opens up.

A lovely local family says,

Come stay with us for the night.

And you have this moment of connection of a stranger being kind to you.

All right,

We just,

We don't know how this is unfolding.

So the more that we can prioritize our internal intention,

Whatever word you used to describe in the meditation of what it is that's most important,

Making sure it's not dependent on anything external,

Peace,

Connection,

Love,

Belonging,

Tranquility,

Serenity,

Equanimity,

Whatever word you use to describe it,

Make sure that that is your number one intention.

Everything else flows from there.

It will keep bringing you back.

If you get the order right,

It will keep bringing you back.

When you face challenges,

It will bring you back.

When you're not trusting the process,

It will bring you back.

It is the best pointer that we have.

And nurture that seed.

So why I ask the question in most meditations,

Because we need to keep saying it and we need to keep following it up with,

What could I be doing differently?

What could I be doing differently?

Not grasping at what I need to be doing differently.

It will naturally happen.

Reviews

🙏❣️🙏

Thank you for sharing. I struggle with intentions. Many times I just get nothing when asked to set one. You gave me something to think about. 🙏

Thanks for the shorter version of a previous talk. I love what you shared here. And thank you for the lower toned bell 🔔✨ 🔔✨🔔✨🔔