rightintention

Mind comes before all. Right intention is all about having a mind geared toward the greater good.

And yes - your own liberation from all suffering is still the priority. But the way you attain this liberation happens to help everyone around you, too.

Right intention is living a life which does not contradict the reality of existence, namely: impermanence, the fact that craving causes suffering, and the way leading to the cessation of suffering.

It boils down to renouncing greed and hatred, and working to clear delusion. Greed and hatred hurt you, not the other. They eat you up with stress hormones, make you suffer when you inevitably lose things through decay, and keep you up at night with envy about other peoples’ success or perceived slights.

There are three core precepts: intention of renunciation, intention of goodwill and intention of harmlessness.

Renunciation does not mean to throw everything away and become a monk. Remember that the buddha taught of the happinesses available to the householder, including the happiness of ownership and enjoyment.  

What it means is to be a minimalist.

Because you will be happier.

Do not fill your life with unnecessary clutter. Do not try to fill the gaping void in your soul with ‘things’. They will make the hole bigger, because of the law of craving. Craving is a global thing, remember: the more you feed it, the more it craves. The monkey always needs more bananas.

So keep that monkey on a strict diet. You will be happier for it. Do this by seeing through the impermanence of self and objects. If you see that all these things, and indeed your very self, will decay and disappear, you will cling to them less.

Goodwill means dropping hatred and anger because of past interactions or perceived differences. I mean… really… who does this hurt? You sitting there in your bedroom full of rage about what someone said on the internet or some insult thrown your way 20 years ago. Even abuse from a parent; once they are no longer in the picture, the only person you are hurting is yourself.

Your self. It comes back to this, doesn’t it? There is no self; just a domino chain of causation. While you are in this unbroken chain it is nigh-impossible to release these angers, and let go of ill-will. Again this loops back to breaking the illusion of a permanent self through right mindfulness and right concentration. Those people who hurt you were acting from their own greed and delusion, and you will have a better world for yourself if you let go of the algorithm they installed in your sim.

Intention of harmlessness is very much a live and let live thing. You want to be free of the guilt of having caused harm to others, both human and animal. In this way you are ensuring that you do not perpetuate the cycle of suffering.

You want to avoid playing the role of a spider in his little web trying to manipulate people for your own gain because - yep - you guessed it - you don’t exist. 

Well.. you do ‘exist’. You most certainly exist. Yet it’s the illusion that you exist in a lasting way which prevents you from existing as your best self. Confused yet? 

Your best self only exists in this moment and holding on to past versions while projecting future versions just takes you away from the moment you are in. The moment you are in is the only moment you can and will ever have. And this moment. And this one. And this. It’s always ‘now’, see?

It all boils down to realising that you will be a happier and more engaged person who lives in reality instead of some deluded ball of neuroses if you let go of craving and ill-will, and that both of these traits come from the delusion of having a lasting and permanent self.

You are a cross section of a river; things flow in and out and you are changed by them while seeming to remain constant. If you try to hold on to the water then you just prevent it from moving the way it was supposed to.

Right intention is the resolve to let go of craving, cultivate goodwill, and to live without harming others. 

From this foundation flow right speech, right action, and right livelihood, the practical signs of a mind aligned with reality.

/jb202509171509