Manifesting Our Intentions Requires Our Attention

Written by : John Allcock

While it is true that everything rests on the tip of intention, there is more to the Buddha's teachings on how our intentions can lead us to happiness, or to suffering.

Attention and cultivation are the keys to manifesting wise intentions into actions which promote freedom from suffering.

We can choose wise intentions but without attention to manifest them to action, we can wander into unwise paths, or lapse into unwise habits, which can lead to suffering.

The Buddha likened this to selecting and cultivating the right seeds in your garden. If you want mangos, you cannot plant an apple seed and expect a mango tree to grow. So you cannot form intentions of greed and expect acts of generosity to manifest. But planting mango seeds does not guarantee you will end up with mango fruit. If the seed is not watered, the area weeded and fertilized, and otherwise cultivated the seed will not manifest with a tree bearing mango fruit. Similarly planting the seed, the intent, of generosity, or kindness, or mindfulness will not guarantee acts embodying those values will manifest.

Cultivating those values requires attention.

Consider the following and ask if something like this has happened to you.

A woman was attending mindfulness classes and engaging in a mindful meditation practice--she was planting the seed, having the intention of being mindful in her daily life. One morning she got up a little late, and rushed in making lunch for her children. So, she was in a bit of a hurry when she took the jar of pickles out of the refrigerator to put pickles in their lunch, and did not put the cover back on the jar completely when she returned it to its place in the refrigerator.  A couple of days later she was again a little late, and thus hurried. When she took the pickle jar out she did not notice the cover was ajar, and it dropped to the floor, smashed and pickles and glass spewed everywhere. She hurriedly cleaned it up and went about her business. The next morning, she went down to the kitchen and stepped on a shard of glass left on the floor because she was rushed the day before. She ended up in the hospital.

 This chain of events started with an intention to hurry.

Now there are several teachings the Buddha would draw from this pickle story.

One is that we sometimes have unwise intents running our mental program without even realizing it. Here the woman's conscious intent was to be mindful, but her habit of hurrying became her actual moment-to-moment intention. Had her attention been focused on her acting on a mindful intent, things would likely have been different.

It also illustrates the Buddha's notion of karma at work.

Every intentional act we take matters, and it will always have a result.

Here, the intention led to a thought and habit, the habit led to action, and the action had a result--in this case one of suffering.

But it also highlights another aspect of the Buddha’s teaching of karma--with a bit of mindfulness the woman could have changed her intention at any step in the way and changed the result. If she had been mindful on the second day, (and noticed the cover ajar) or the third day (and noticed the shard of glass), she likely would have changed her situation, and she would not have ended up in the hospital.

The point is with proper attention to your moment-to-moment intention, your intention can always be changed.

And with a change in intent, you may manifest a change in result.

Mindfulness, and specifically mindful meditation is the tool with which the Buddha taught to train our attention. With a heightened ability to notice what intention is operating in each moment, we can change to a wiser choice now, regardless of what choices we have made in the past.

If you are interested in attention training, come join us at the meditation classes at Yoga Mammoth.