Setting Our Intentions For The Year

All meditative and spiritual practices could be described as simply recognizing the fundamental, wholesome desires found in each of us and, little by little, turning our lives toward them. Our deepest desires are often not hard to find and exist just below the surface of experience. This session offers an opportunity to choose the words to express those desires and set them as our intentions for this year.

Transcript

All right,

Well why don't we get started and welcome everyone.

It's great to see everybody.

We can begin with a short meditation.

So I would encourage you just to get comfortable.

You might just listen to what your body needs right now.

And sit in a way that supports your wakefulness,

Your relaxation,

Your clarity.

And if you choose to you can close your eyes.

And we can begin with some relaxed,

Long,

Comfortable,

Deep breaths.

You can notice how these long breaths affect the whole body and mind.

We can reset and relax as you take in these deep breaths.

You can start to feel how long,

Slow,

Deep breaths will trigger the natural rest and restore response in the body.

It's really the counter to the fight or flight response.

Rest and restore.

With the in breath you can feel the space expanding.

With the out breath a feeling of returning.

And as your breathing continues just keep opening more and more to the whole body.

And all of the aliveness there.

Now you can take a moment to recall what it is that brought you here today to this meditation.

What is your intention for this time?

It could be very simple to look for some calm or some peace.

Maybe to open your heart,

To feel more free,

More kind.

Whatever it is,

See if you can touch into that intention or desire just for a moment.

You might see if you can attach just one word to whatever that is,

Peace or calm,

Clarity.

Don't worry about which word it is,

Just pick one for now and gently with each in breath silently repeat that word.

Start to feel how that word can expand within your body with each in breath.

Feel free to just let it get as big as you want.

You might notice how this affects the whole body.

Perhaps bringing greater sense of aliveness,

Presence,

Relaxation or even warmth or energy.

Just follow these sensations,

Feel into them and rest there for a moment.

Just feel how good they are.

You can gently slowly return,

Coming back to the room.

You're on time,

Open your eyes.

It's remarkable how we can hack into these intentions so easily.

In one sense they're the deepest part of us and you might think that they're quite hidden somewhere,

But in another way I think they're always just slightly below the surface.

That sense that there is another dimension of your experience,

A kind of more expanded,

Opened,

Awakened self that is right here,

Accessible to you.

I think in one way all meditative practice is just simply a way of recognizing these wholesome intentions that are already here.

And then little by little finding the practices that work for you,

That help us to turn towards that,

To recognize and cultivate these wholesome intentions,

This other dimension of experience.

And I think when we do that we make this discovery that,

And I think this is one of the wildest parts of life,

Is that we can create this reality of our lives.

This quote that I often repeat,

That upon which the mind constantly dwells is that to which it will naturally become inclined.

That every day we cut these neural pathways in our brain.

So what are we supposed to do with this realization that the mind's content is really all up to us?

I know the experience of life is often exactly the opposite,

That these habitual patterns of thought or likes and dislikes are really solid and immovable.

There's the old joke about the scientists who are studying Alzheimer's and they go from one group to another and they get to the Irish,

And I can tell this joke because I'm part Irish,

And so they find with the Irish they get Alzheimer's and the memory goes and all of their mind seems to go,

Their recollection,

And the only thing that remain are the grudges for the Irish.

So the question then is,

Well,

If this wild thing is true that we really can make our lives and cut these neural pathways ourselves,

Can we align,

If we have a choice,

With our deepest intention?

I mean doesn't that make sense,

Right?

What is most important to us?

I mean do we want to alternatively decide to go with the unwholesome patterns in life,

The shame or the hatred or the cruelty,

Ill will,

Do we want those?

I mean I think most people would say no.

The Buddha,

This is 2500 years ago,

Said all experience is preceded by mind,

Led by mind,

Made by mind,

Speaker act with a corrupted mind,

And suffering follows as the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox,

The wagon being tethered to the oxen,

Everywhere it goes the wagon follows.

And then he continues,

Speaker act with a peaceful mind and happiness follows,

Like a never departing shadow.

There is a book called Nine Choices of Extremely Happy People and it was a research experiment.

These social scientists went to different parts of the world and they would go to a town or a village and they'd always ask the same question,

They'd say,

Tell me who the happiest person here is in this village.

They'd ask a bunch of people.

And normally they would coalesce around one or two people that a whole bunch of folks would say are absolutely so and so,

Everybody knows that's the happiest person around.

And interestingly,

A lot of these people were people with very difficult lives.

It wasn't as if these were the people who were most carefree or had the easiest time.

So then they went about interviewing these people,

The happiest people,

And they asked them,

Well,

Why are you so happy?

What is it?

Tell us your secret,

Right?

And the first thing in most cases that they said was the intention,

The decision to be happy.

And I'll just say if happy doesn't work as a word for you here,

You can substitute awaken,

Fulfilled,

Realize,

Whatever word works for you,

Right?

So I'll read you a quote from this book.

Unlike most forces in life that are out of our control,

Our intention is fully in our control.

In other words,

We can't always choose our circumstances,

But we can always choose our attitude and our reaction to things around us.

Unfortunately,

In today's chaotic world,

Most of us fail to capitalize on that reality.

Instead,

Stumble from one activity to the next on autopilot,

All because we are unaware of our intentions.

So to sum up,

Everything follows from intention.

There's a saying that goes,

The most important thing is to remember the most important thing.

Or in other words,

To remember what is important to you.

That is the most important thing for any of us.

And second,

To recognize that thing,

That that intention,

That wholesome intention is inside of us.

It may feel sometimes just like a flicker,

Or sometimes it may burn very intensely,

But it's there.

It's our highest aspiration.

And so third,

The question is,

I think for all of us,

Well,

Why not go for it?

Why not see what it's like to actually to live that thing?

What is it that each of us wants to cultivate?

Or what's your vision for life?

Can we set that intention?

And then see if you can start to act upon that,

Make that visible.

You can look at your life as kind of like a laboratory to experiment.

It's like,

What if I acted on that intention in this situation?

Somebody's autobiography was entitled The Story of My Experiments with Truth.

And if you read it and know a little bit of his life,

It is like one experiment or another amazing experiment.

He did not start there.

He started,

I think I mentioned this before,

As a lawyer.

He was trying to be the perfect English gentleman.

And as part of that,

He became a lawyer.

He was also a terribly frightened person.

One of his biographers said that in one of his first cases where he tried to launch his law career,

He had basically to withdraw from the case because he was too nervous to speak in court.

So he started experimenting with the truth.

And if you go to India,

I think still today,

In every post office,

There is a photo of Gandhi's the father of the nation because he led that nonviolent revolution to free themselves from British rule.

Or this from Steve Jobs.

The most important thing is to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you're going to live in it versus embrace it,

Change it,

Improve it.

Or this by that 20th century guru and also former New York Giants catcher Yogi Berra.

If you don't know where you're going,

You'll end up someplace else.

So I'd like to try something with you.

This meditative version of New Year's resolutions,

Perhaps.

We did this last year.

Maybe a couple of you were around for that.

So the exercise is to choose three words that will guide you this year.

Guide your choices,

Your actions.

And these are little guideposts.

You could even use them when you're thinking about am I going to say yes to this thing or this project or whatever.

You could just look at your words and ask yourself,

Does this align with my intentions?

I actually have my last ones on a little card on my computer and I actually try this.

So here are the rules.

Don't use a phrase,

Just use a word.

Use nouns or verbs.

Something that's more action oriented like expand rather than bigger.

The simpler the better.

Don't worry about whether the word makes any sense.

It just has to resonate with you.

So to get the three words,

Now this is where you're going to need your pen and your paper,

Okay?

I'm going to give you about a minute.

I'll keep time here.

And so what you can do is start by just writing all of the words that come to mind when I say what words will guide you this year?

Don't worry about what they are.

Just kind of keep going until I say stop.

And I'll give you an example.

I did this earlier today.

These are the ones that I came up with when I first did it.

Calm,

Peace,

Honest,

Love,

Happiness,

Rest,

Revive,

Pure,

Caring,

Hope,

Create,

Be aware,

Reconcile.

Just a bunch of words,

Okay?

So if everybody's ready,

We can start and again,

I'll give you this prompt a couple times.

What words will guide you this year?

What words will guide you this year?

Just relax into the exercise.

What words will guide you this year?

Now I'll give you another minute and you can look over your list and I'd like to see if you could pick three words that most resonate.

Those three words.

You may just read through the list a few times and just check and see.

Again,

The words don't even have to make sense in an objective way but the ones that really blend for you.

Alright,

So now we'll do a short meditation together and again you can just relax back into your body,

You can close your eyes if you feel comfortable.

Find that posture that helps to support your aliveness,

Your ease.

Deeply extending the in-breath to be long and slow and relaxing your ease on the out-breath.

And with each in-breath I want you to pick just one of those three words that you selected and let it be your anchor for this time.

And silently breathe in with that word.

With each out-breath allow that word to expand and fill the space and feel that word's contour,

Texture,

Feel into the sensations as that word rises with each in-breath.

Just allow that word to pervade the mind.

Soak it up like a sponge.

See how good it feels.

Now when you're ready you can gently set it aside.

You might open your eyes and just look at your paper where that word is and your other two words for this year and see it there as some inspiration for you.

You might think of creating a little post-it,

Putting it somewhere where you can see it.

It's a little anchor,

A guide for this year.

Reviews

I really love and appreciated this, beginning with the meditation and continuing with our intentions. Beautiful soothing voice. Thank you 🙏🏾🙏🏾