Let’s talk about the meaning of intention, volition, “I will,” “I want,” “May I”: Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, “Everything exists on the tip of the wish” – and he means that one: intention. All he’s saying is you’ve got to first have intention before anything happens.
We’re not discussing motivation here – please hear this. We so often use intention and motivation synonymously. We’ll say, “She had a good intention.” That’s not the kind of intention we’re talking about here – that’s actually motivation.
We have to understand where “intention” fits in the Buddhist model of the mind. All the contents of our mental consciousness – thoughts, feelings, emotions, to the most subtle level – can be divided precisely into three categories, and this is very surprising to us: 1. The nonvirtues: those that are I-based, neurotic, afflicted, delusional, misconceptions, and the source of our pain; 2. the virtues: those that are valid, reasonable, in sync with dependent arising to some degree, and are the source of our happiness; and the third lot, I call them the “mechanics of our mind” – they’re the parts of our mind that enable us to function.
Whether you’re a murderer or a meditator, you need good concentration, you need good memory, you need good discrimination – and we need intention. All of these are neither negative nor positive in the sense of not being nonvirtuous or virtuous. But clearly they’re crucial.
Here we’re discussing “I will,” “May I,” “I want.” That’s intention, and without that, nothing follows. If you don’t have the thought – if you don’t have the thought – “I want an ice cream,” nothing will ever happen that’ll go anywhere near an ice cream unless you fall over one by accident, you know?
Intention drives every millisecond of everything we do, every millisecond. Very often we think it’s just called instinct, but if you have an itch in your leg, and your hand scratches it, that’s because of intention. If there’s no thought of intention – “I will do it” – your hand will stay in your lap, I promise.
Of course we’ve trained our mind from countless lifetimes, we’re programmed: that’s what we call instinct. Instinct is just the habit of having done something so often it’s now second nature. But if intention weren’t there, you wouldn’t scratch your knee, no way.
So what does Lama Zopa want us to do with, “Everything exists on the tip of the wish”? What’s the learning here?
The trouble is our intentions for countless lifetimes have been driven by attachment, so we have to radically change our minds and have our intentions driven by virtue. Then we’ll get somewhere!
So many of our prayers are all aspirations, and aspiration is just intention: “May all sentient beings be happy,” “May I be happy,” “May I get the best paid job,” “May I find the most handsome husband,” “May I stop being ill.” That’s intention – and you utilize that.
You have to learn to activate that in daily life. That’s why we say, “May I become a buddha” – that’s intention – “I want to become a buddha.” It’s intention, you know: “I want,” “May I,” “May it” – may, the wish, the thought.
But we need courage. So often we’re too scared to even have a big, virtuous intention – “Oh, no, I can’t achieve that!” But we can! And we have to start with the thought, the intention, the wish.
You’ve got to use that intention, motivated by bodhichitta and the other virtues, and train it in the direction you want to go, and then everything, all the bits and pieces, will follow, your legs and arms and all the other thoughts will follow – and you will succeed!