intent

The Intent You Know, The Intent You Don’t

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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

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“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 Gentle and The Firm

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In my readings on Taoism, I recently read through “Immortal Sisters,” one of Thomas Cleary’s early translations, this one of works by female Taoists. It’s a fascinating read of course, and it’s written by a younger, dare I say feistier Cleary with opinions on certain eras of Chinese history that I believe mitigated with time. However I wish to focus on some writings by famed Taoist Immortal Sun Bu-Er and commentary by Chen Yingning (Cleary has a knack for finding and translating not just documents, but often extensive commentary on the same).

The funny thing was the copy I had I’ve had, as of this writing, perhaps two decades or more. I’d forgotten I had it, and as I was working to expand my Taoist readings, I decided it was time. I found much excellent advice, but one piece stood out in particular.

To show how useful this advice was, let me explain the situation where it helped me.

My meditative practice, as I’ve stated before, is based on The Secret of The Golden Flower, where one rests mind on breath while one tunes breath to be slower and even. It’s a simple process, summarizable in, say, a small handbook. However as any practitioner of meditation knows, the actual experience is one that can be discussed endlessly (as many have).

Trying to rest mind on breath and tune that breath isn’t as simple as it may sound, at least for me. One is trying to tune breath, one is trying to rest mind, one is sitting still, one probably has thoughts arising and so on. In my readings of Taoist literature, I’ve found at least a notable part of the obscure symbolism is useful concepts and approaches to help meditation without spelling it out so much your expectations mess you up.

And the writings of Sun Bu-Er provides to have some extremely helpful advice. The specific section is called “Cultivating the Elixir,” and using alchemical symbolism, it states the following:

“Tuning the breath, gather it in the gold crucible.”

“Stabilizing spirit, guard the jade pass.”

Chen Yingning notes in his commentary (which, as per classic Taoism, is far longer than the things he comments on) that this is about the kind of concentration one uses. Breath requires strong concentration, resting the mind requires gentle concentration.

And, suddenly, I understood meditation more.

There I am tuning my breath – slower and more even all the time. That requires firmness, strength. Your whole body is engaged. That strength ensures a refined breath.

There I am resting my mind – and that is best done gently. We all know what it’s like to force our mind to do things – our mind wrestling with our mind is a painful thing. But when I rest my mind on breath, I can make it gentler and gentler.

It’s firm and gentle, mind and breath, yin and yang – pairings are understandably common in Taoist meditation. A little addition to my understanding of meditation thanks to a modern translator and the writers of the past. A little more for my journey down the path.

That’s a funny thing about meditative practices, about spiritual practices in general. You have to do it, you have to get your hands dirty, and you can’t get lost in scripture and notes and endless spinning thoughts. At the same time you have to read and expand your mind, never think you have the answers – or even all the questions.

It requires a kind of curiosity, a willingness to get into the readings – like a meditation. Be open to surprises.

Just like me with a copy of a book I got decades ago.

–Xenofact