On setting intentions

 

Henni Alftan, “Broken Flowers,” 2020, oil on canvas, 25 5?8 × 21 1?4 inches; 65 × 54 cm (link)

One thing that I've learned from Buddhism is that we should start all things with an intention and check our motivation.  Some meditation guides, too, begin a class or a talk by asking everyone in attendance to "set an intention."  Similarly, in church, sometimes the lector began the service by doing a quick announcement, and then asking for church-goers to take the next 30-seconds to "prepare your heart" before the service begins.   It helps us not sink to mindlessness, from filling up time or moving heedlessly from one distracting activity to the next.

I've been thinking about this as we try to adjust some kid behaviors at the dinner table.   There are occasions when we sit at the table "braced" for Charlotte to wreck the meal in some way - a snippy comment, a strange reaction, a blow-up if I ask her to be careful with the salt, whatever.  And in general, I am letting her anger, weirdness, energy, discomfort, lack of empathy affect the tone of the house, negatively affect the tone.  Too often, I bring my broody self or my "braced" self to the table (or to a new room or the beginning of a meeting).  I drag my 'concerns' to a new setting.  

Thubten Chodron starts her Google talk with a short meditation and a “motivation check in.” She says that we should set good motivation for all that we do and check it consciously to make sure that it is a good motivation. For Buddhists, she says, it’s not what you do, but WHY you do it. We often don’t know our own motivations. There are, however, intentions for all of our actions… but we are spaced out, we live on automatic. So, we aren’t fully alive because we are not making a conscious choice about how to use our energy and not steering our mind in a virtuous or wholesome direction.

And maybe having no intention is nearly as bad as having a negative (braced, angry) intention.  

Maybe things would be better if I worked to "set intentions" at the dinner table, or the beginning of the workday, each meeting, each hour.  It's partly about getting your 'face' right to communicate to those around you that everything is OK.  

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Joseph Goldstein, in Insight Hour Podcast Episode #91, says "intention or aspiration."