Meditation

The Intent You Know, The Intent You Don’t

by

In the last year or so I’ve become fascinated by the role of intent in meditative and spiritual practice and how intent has different qualities. We set our intent to meditate or do something else and our behavior shifts. We meditate on our breath, yet the intent (as per the Taoist works I’ve read) has both firm (breathing) and gentle (attending the breath) components that are also one. The study of intent is teaching me a lot of lessons.

In my case, one realization I’ve come to in studying intent is that, by setting one’s intent, you very quickly learn that your intent isn’t what you think.

You can sit down with the intent to have a regular breath and pay attention to it. Then you start pushing away at certain “wrong” sensations. You think about your cooking and what you have to do. Suddenly you’re analyzing Dungeon Crawler Carl. OK, some of this is just me, but you get the idea.

You sit down with a very clear intent and it goes off the rails. So are you weak-willed? Are you a failure? No, you’re not – you’re learning a lot about your actual intents – plural.

Sure you’re sitting down with the intent to meditate – but is that your actual intent? Maybe you’re seeking certain signs and experiences (something oft warned of in Taoist documents I’ve read). Maybe you’re wanting to get away from the day. Maybe you really just hope to relax. You sit down with one intent but it evaporates quickly as other intents were there, intents you hadn’t thought of.

Or perhaps when you set your intent on something and there are competing intents. Yes, you have an intent, but it’s currently in a wrestling match with six others. You weren’t going to eat that gigantic chocolate chip cookie, but your intent to deal with your crappy day at work wins out. Your intent was clear, but it lost the debate.

You get the idea. We set our intent and then it doesn’t hold. It’s not that we’ve failed, it’s that often what we want to do and what our priorities aren’t what we think they are or want them to be. You didn’t fail so much as not know yourself as well as you thought – and be ready to persist through that realization.

Which is fine because then you learn. You learn about what you want and what you really want. You learn about about your priorities. You set an intent and fail, yes, but that failure can be informative.

For myself, I learned that in my meditative practice I did often seek signs or milestones of progress, or try and reject “wrong” states of mind. In many cases I knew enough that my intent was not what it should have been. I had to relearn just intending to sit there and breathe and that’s it.

My meditative work also helped me understand other aspects of my life and intent.. I noticed how I’d set intent to get something done and fail because I’d ignored exhaustion or stress.. I’d notice how certain things would seize my imagination in a distracting way, telling me more about my creative interests and goals – and obsessions. Honestly, failing with intent has been incredibly therapeutic.

I keep meditating though, and not only have the benefits of meditation, but of my failures. I have taken to setting intent for clarity of mind in mundane tasks, making them into meditations in a way – and learn from both distractions and focus. Intent is a wonderfully simple tool, and like a tool practice helps and may result in a few humiliating banged fingers.

So don’t beat yourself up when your intent doesn’t hold. The issue is the self you want to beat up isn’t who you thought it was. Maybe you can intend to keep going – and learn.

Intent never ends, it’s always there to work with.

–Xenofact

On Intent

by

“Intent” is a word that comes up a lot in meditation, mysticism, magic, and psychology. In my recent meditative work, I’ve come to understand the importance of intent in our works and in psychological health. Thus it’s my intent to discuss it.

In my breath meditation, the goal is to refine a slow and even breath, mind ever on breath. If you’ve ever tried to meditate, or maintain other spiritual or magical practices, you know how the mind can wander. When your mind wanders it doesn’t respond to force very well because it’s trying to force itself, putting you in the psycho-spiritual version of “stop hitting yourself.”

An important breakthrough for me in meditation was the idea of “firm” intent and “gentle” intent, thanks to Taoist Immortal Sun Bu-Er and translator Chen Yingning. These two intents worked together as one, providing tuned breath (firm intent) and attention (gentle intent). The mind set the goal of tuning breath, and as it tuned, it simply stayed with it – it set the goal and stayed there loyalty with the breath.

This helped me appreciate the value of intent, as well as its value in our various metaphysical practices.

To set the intent for something is not forcing it so much as setting a goal and sticking with the actions that surround that goal. It’s not force, it’s almost a kind of loyalty to the very action aroused by setting the goal. It’s partnership.

This made meditation easier for me. I want to tune breath so I just stay with breath as I tune it, the loyal partnership is gentle intent, the activity firm intent. I do not turn my intent against myself or force it, but more navigate a path forward towards my goal. Intent is not “forcing it until it happens” but more “eyes on the road as you go forward.”

I found this also made forms of walking meditation easier and have tried short bursts of “being present” – set a goal to walk to an area during a hike or to just work on preparing a meal, etc. Each small bit of wholehearted attention, setting intent and doing with the intent as beacon was a small meditation.

There were of course the usual benefits of meditation, but I was also glad to just understand how my mind worked a bit better and of course a better understanding of intent.

When I see intent mentioned in psychological and spiritual practices I “get it” much better now. Intent in prayer, in ritual, etc. is all about setting that goal and just doing whatever gets to the goal. It’s also unifying as your intent and action are in partnership, which doubtlessly has psychological and perhaps even metaphysical benefits.

I look forward to hearing from my readers on their own experiences.

–Xenofact

The Dialog

by

In my readings on Taoism, I often find them relaxing. Beautiful metaphors about flowing water. Kind advice on remaining calm. Plenty of (mostly) gentle humor. Above and below it all is the idea of the Tao, of the ever inflowing and outflowing reality.

Then of course real life hits. The car needs work. You’re having a panic attack over a sore tooth. A co-worker has suddenly quit and you get their work. All of American politics since 2016. The above lovely words are just words when stress kicks in – unless you put them into practices.

Yet at the same time, that idea of the Tao sits there. When we meditate or engage in internal alchemy or psychological investigation, there’s something there. We work to develop and refine ourselves, the walls come down just enough we’re there with something greater.

In my readings and meditations – and coping with stress – I found a concept that helps me better connect with the world, with the Tao, that I call The Dialog.

When speculating on a stressful situation, something stuck in my mind – that the situation was really a dialog. Yes, there were potential concerns, but those concerns prompted adjustment. In fact the concerns led to the very changes that would mitigate the concerns. It wasn’t a conflict, it was a harmony, like a discussion among people.

The more I thought about this I saw how much of life was a dialog, a constant interplay of information, a conversation. Driving a car. Adjusting your diet. Moderating difficult work situations. Talking people down – or talking people up. We’re always navigating.

Even we ourselves are a dialog. This idea adapts to that idea. This experience leads to new discoveries and adjustments. We’re not who we once were – because we’re a conversation. That conversation might be an annoying passive aggressive argument, but we can change the kind of conversation.

Thinking of life, even in stressful situations, as a dialog helped me feel more connected to life – and more alive. I was always in a dialog with life, with my life, with my environment. I was always adapting, always changing, never solid, just alive.

This also helped me understand the ever-elusive Tao of Taoism better. You can’t grasp it you, you can’t point at it, you can’t speak of it. But when you realize life is an ever-swirling dialog you’re a bit closer to it because you’re not trying to define, you’re being.

Life whirls and circles, alters and changes. You can’t settle on any one point or place and say “this is it” – and the concept of The Dialog helps you not settle down or try to claim one part of the world as permanent.

I’ve taken to asking myself each day how I’ve used this concept of The Dialog and it’s been extremely helpful. It’s a nice way to review how I use a useful idea – or when I could have.

So next time you feel off, feel a little “too solid,” feel a little conflicted, think of how you’re in a Dialog. You’re learning and reacting, the world changes and react, and if you’re open, you can navigate to places you want to go (even if you may not know you want to). You might not just feel better, but you may feel a little more connected to everything.

–Xenofact