Intention is the core of all conscious life. It is our intentions that create Karma, our intentions that help others, our intentions that lead us away from the delusions of individuality towards the immutable verities of enlightened awareness. Conscious intention colours and moves everything.
~Master Hsing Yun
A new year is upon us and we naturally look forward with eager eyes, filled with anticipation and curiosity about what might lie ahead. It has become common practice to make resolutions for the coming year, promises for what we will do, how we will be, changes we will make. What resolutions have you made in past years? How many of those promises were successfully fulfilled?
I have never really been one for New Year’s resolutions. Since mindfulness practice became part of my daily life, I find that what resonates with me instead is trying to live with intention – not just at the dawn of a new year, but every day. As Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Waking up this morning I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully each moment, and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.” We need not wait for a new calendar year to set intentions for how we will go about our day, how we will treat ourselves, how we will interact with the world around us.
Through mindfulness we learn to pay conscious attention to the present moment, and we come to realise that this moment is all that we are truly guaranteed. When we understand the impermanent nature of things, it is not that we must abandon all planning for the future, but we can invite a sense of perspective into our plans. When we plan a holiday, it can bring such joy and excitement to investigate all the sights we want to see, the food we want to eat, the adventures we want to take. However, with all of that planning, it can be deeply disappointing when the trip we imagined in our dreams turns out quite differently in reality. The same holds true for promises we make to ourselves or to others that in the end simply cannot be kept. We cannot truly know what lies ahead for us – change, challenge, the unexpected arises on our path and as a result plans may go awry and promises may go unfulfilled. While we are unable to anticipate exactly what the future holds, we can choose to open our hearts and minds and be willing to entertain all possibilities with a sense of acceptance and equanimity.
Practicing mindfulness teaches us how to live with intention. We can intentionally invite compassion and lovingkindness into our hearts so that we may nourish ourselves and share it with those around us. We can intentionally respond to challenge and duress with a sense of equanimity. We can intentionally accept the changing nature of life, releasing our attachment to outcomes we cannot control. As Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön advises, “Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. It is all we ever have so we might as well work with it rather than struggle against it. We might as well make it our friend and teacher rather than our enemy.”
As you look to the year ahead, what intentions do you wish to invite into your heart? Perhaps ask yourself this question as you sit in meditation and notice what arises. We need not wait for a clock to strike or a calendar page to turn – we can infuse each day with conscious intention, welcoming each moment as a friend, a teacher, an opportunity to experience something new.