Right Intent

So right intent is an important base to cultivate. The three inclinations that make up right intent are kindness, compassion and renunciation – letting go of the pull of the senses. Tuning into and sustaining this right intent feels good: firstly it generates self-respect or freedom from regret and anxiety. Then, because we act in accordance with that right intent, it means that we make good friends, and we cultivate livelihood that isn’t caught up with greed or manipulation. So we both establish a sense of inner stability and dignity, and also we make our living context one of agreeable rather than toxic contact. When these are in place the heart can start to relax.

When you focus in the heart, you’ll see that wholesomeness leads to pleasant feeling – whereas actions that are pushy, embittered or deceitful don’t feel good. We can know both the wholesome and the unwholesome, and through steering away from harshness and greed feel a sense of coming into balance, of relating to this world, rather than trying to hold onto a position within in it. To find this balance entails handling the internal and the external realities with the same intent - and it’s only right intent that can do that. It means relating to oneself and others with the same intent of kindness and compassion: ‘to others as to myself’. Then the heart isn’t divided.

The important thing to bear in mind is that intent isn’t the ideas in your head, but the bearing of your heart. A lot of ideas are confused, but even good ideas are a problem – just because they take you up into your head and into some abstract idea of what you should or couldn’t be. But if we come from ideas and idealism alone, heart-teachings get twisted. For example, the Buddha advised the recollection of Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha; that this gives rise to gladness and confidence. Gladness and faith are essential factors to give you energy and aim. But what can happen is that when we recollect the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, we think, ‘Buddha… Buddha… Buddha…somebody a lot better than I am; Dhamma: something I haven’t got very far with; Sangha: a bunch of people who are purer and more enlightened than me.’ The idea hasn’t translated into a heart-sense, and it turns against us. Now if I see a beautiful sunset, I don’t think, ‘I’m not as big and beautiful as that!’ or ‘Well, so what?’ I can appreciate it – because my heart gets the meaning of beauty and receives and relaxes into that. Recollection is like that; it’s a means for lifting the heart by receiving and empathising with wonderful things such as understanding and joy and freedom and integrity. But when it’s used as a means for comparing and defining ourselves, it’s miserable. The problem as always is this ‘self-view.’ And although self-view can wear many faces, it’s the self-critical one that most people get stuck in. That’s why I call this mind-set and view ‘The Inner Tyrant.’

This reflection by Ajahn Sucitto is from his article, Unseating the Inner Tyrant.