Three Buddhist Practices to Help Shape Intentions
Although I often struggle with winter—Montreal winters can feel endlessly long–I love this time of year, particularly because of the possibility and promise to start anew. I didn’t always feel this way, but I’ve learned to embrace this season–not for setting resolutions in the spirit of a “New Year, new me”–but as an opportunity to deepen my commitment to make my whole life a living prayer, as Thanissara beautifully said at our November Spirit Rock retreat.
The mainstream practice of New Year’s resolutions makes me think of the Buddha’s teachings on intention. I imagine these three Buddhist practices—samma sankappa or Wise Intention, adhiṭṭhāna or determination, and cetāna or volition—as a kind of funnel, each feeding into the next.
At the top of this funnel is samma sankappa, or Wise Intention. What makes this intention “wise” is that it’s cultivated in the service of freedom—not necessarily in the service of self-improvement or “to do something better.” In Buddhist teachings, as part of the Eightfold Path, samma sankappa is defined by the intention having the wholesome qualities of nekhamma (renunciation), mettā (loving-kindness), and karuṇā (compassion).
In my mind, this foundation of Wise Intention feeds into the next layer, adhiṭṭhāna, often translated as determination or resolve. The mainstream use of “intention setting” actually refers to adhiṭṭhāna; resolving to cultivate a certain quality or bring something to life. When practiced in combination with samma sankappa (Wise Intention), the intentions we make to shape our day, week, month, or life can be linked back to those wholesome qualities of nekhamma (renunciation), mettā (loving-kindness), and/or karuṇā (compassion). Thus they are in service of freedom from suffering, for ourselves and others, now and in the future.
I often hear people feeling pressure to create “perfect” intentions.Two things help me approach this differently:
Remembering, like everything else, intentions are impermanent. They can change and evolve as we do.
Adding “What if…?” to the beginning of an intention. For example “What if I am a refuge for others?” or “What if I lead with loving-kindness?” This is more of a somatic practice, but prefacing an intention with “What if” helps to create a feeling of spaciousness and allowing, rather than a feeling of “locked in”-ness.
A simple yet poignant example of an intention with samma sankappa (Wise Intention) and its root and in the spirit of adhiṭṭhāna (determination or resolve) could be “May I be loving and kind” or “What if I was loving and kind?
Finally, these two broader intentions flow into the most immediate layer, cetāna, often defined as volition or directionality. In my experience, cetāna is how the earlier layers of intention—samma sankappa (Wise Intention) and adhiṭṭhāna (determination)—manifest in the moment.
For example, imagine you're at the grocery store and you arrive at the checkout line at the same time as another person. The line is long so there will be some sort of volitional urge (cetāna) around how to respond. You could either try to assert yourself and cut the other person off because you've had a full day and are ready to go home, or there might be a moment of pause where you invite the other person to go in front of you. Your volitional urge (cetāna) might be very different because you've set the intention, "What if I was loving and kind?
This is a simple example, but when we apply this to broader practices like samma sankappa (Wise Intention) and adhiṭṭhāna (determination), we can start to wake up to the fact that every (re)action has energy behind it. This, then, begs the question, if every action has energy behind it, what energy am I bringing? Is the energy in line with these teachings and my intention?
While we can’t catch every reaction in real time, we can begin to notice patterns and tease apart habitual responses, and slowly start the process of making our whole life a living prayer.
We are called and invited to begin with intending to be kind, to be open-hearted, to be gentle in our lives. And in a world marked by extremes, it’s inevitable that we will fail, but without this initial intention for kindness, we risk never cultivating it at all.
This perspective reminds us that even in challenging times, there is potential for transformation and renewal. And that’s why we practice.
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