Intention – The Beginning of Choice
Is your life the way you would like it to be? Are you completely happy and content with it? Have you ever wanted more influence over what is happening in life? Realize, that you have always been influencing. Your life is exactly as it is, as you have focused on it to see it to be. It is your intention, your use of focus which makes it so. It is your use of intention which has created what you experience and continue to (consciously/skilfully, or not) experience. Intention is not what you want, it is what you focus on and why you focus on it!
The power of intention is at the basis of your view of life. Your view is what you believe you know is real. What you believe you know is real, creates your experiences in and from life and influences all of what exists around you. Your use of the universal power of intention is the force that actually does the creating of the world you “choose” (consciously on purpose, or unconsciously/dysfunctionally on automatic pilot). Use of intention either gives the ability to instigate and manage change, or it gives you what you do not want and do not value.
What you know of life is simply a set of ideas, not what is Truth. Truth is Infinite in Power and Knowing. If what you knew about life (that in turn affects how you live it) were, in fact, Truth, this Truth would be evident to all. This Truth would require no debate, there would be no disagreements – no more than seeing a rock on the side of the road requires debating to affirm it is real, or not. The rock is self-evident. Opinions, emotions, and ego are evidenced by nothing in themselves and these are the basis of most people’s truths. This is even true for what are commonly but not correctly referenced as “spiritual truths.” It is not the Truth that argues, it is people’s egos, using quotations of “spiritual truth” incorrectly to mask the fact that it is their egos actually doing the speaking, and often with agendas that have nothing to do with any form of real Truth!
There are two touchstones of real Truth. First, Truth is what functionally physically exists, can be worked with, or evidenced by everyone. All of its pieces and their workings can be improved. These improvements then also become self-evident upon exploration. The second kind of Truth is evidenced by true, or real growth. This growth is what expands the understanding of life and it’s workings, or it is what grows the heart and makes it more loving. As my good Native friend said, “Does it grow corn, or does it grow the heart?” Neither of these requires debating because they are real and fully evident.
The Buddha taught that the three marks of existence are not self, impermanence, and suffering. Change is not only inevitable, it is desired. If things always stayed the same there would be no escape from suffering. If we see and accept as truth that everything is going to change, then we have a choice. We can either allow change to happen without input or direction and accept it, or we can learn to be the instigators and influencers of change!
No one has any ability to choose (decide to influence) to change a thing in life if they can not control their own minds and their own thoughts. Influence, or utilizing the power of change to create change, requires the ability to sustain focus with a harmonious purpose. People think they are choosing when all they are doing is reacting egoistically and emotionally to what they recognize from past memories as being possible. This is not choice. It is merely egoistically and emotionally living from the past, with mind not at all even in this moment! This is not choice, it is the conditioning we call ego, your sense of self. Your ego can not reason, or process using mind skills. It can only emotionally react to the past, whilst pretending it is now.
Bottom line: If you do not, or cannot choose skillfully to focus your mind and sustain that, you can not truly choose a thing!