Right INTENTION: DISCOVERING INTENTION

In Buddhist teachings, intention is central. The Buddha said that karma is intention— what gives our actions ethical weight is not just what we do, but the intention behind it.

That’s a powerful idea. But it can also lead us to believe that we should be able to know our intentions clearly and shape them deliberately. For a long time, I thought that was the task—to identify the right intention and correct myself accordingly. And sometimes that works. But often, it doesn’t. It can feel stressful, even impossible.

Reflective Meditation offers a different approach. Instead of trying to impose the right intention, we begin by becoming aware of the intentions that are already there. Many of our intentions are subtle. They operate below awareness. They show up in our reactions, in our thoughts, in the tone of our inner voice.

When we allow thinking in meditation—not focusing on it, but not excluding it either—we begin to see how thoughts reveal intention. We might notice, for example, that a certain line of thinking is driven by worry, or by a desire to control, or by a wish to be seen in a certain way. These are intentions, even if we didn’t set them consciously.

As we become more aware of these layers, something shifts. We don’t have to suppress or correct them immediately. Just seeing them already changes our relationship to them. We may become less impulsive, less reactive, and more able to choose how we respond.
This is where conditions come in again. We start to see that intention is not just something we generate internally—it is shaped by the conditions of our lives. If we want certain intentions to flourish, we need to support them with conditions.

A simple example is meditation itself. If you have the intention to meditate regularly but haven’t been able to, it may not be about willpower. It may be about conditions. Joining a group, setting a time, creating a structure—these are ways of supporting that intention.

At the same time, we begin to loosen our expectations about what our intentions will produce. Many of us come to meditation with the intention to relax or reduce stress. But then we sit down and find ourselves thinking about something difficult, and we feel more stressed. It’s easy to conclude that meditation isn’t working. But maybe it’s working in a different way. Maybe it’s bringing something into awareness that needs attention.

Over time, sitting with that experience—holding our seat, staying present—may lead to a different kind of ease. Not immediate relaxation, but a deeper steadiness. A more skillful way of responding. So intention becomes less about controlling outcomes and more about participating in a process, more aligned with care and understanding.

Rethinking Right Intention — From Control to Imagination

Right Intention, or sammā saṅkappa, is usually translated as right thought, right resolve, or right intention. Sammā is translated as right, skillful, appropriate, useful, beneficial, or well-directed. In many traditional teachings, this part of the Eightfold Path is understood as cultivating wholesome intentions—renunciation, goodwill, harmlessness. It sounds straightforward: we should try to think and intend in ways that are ethical and kind.

But when we actually try to do this in our own minds, it can get complicated very quickly. We might ask ourselves, “What is my intention right now?” or “Am I having the right intention?” And sometimes we can shape it. But often, if we’re honest, our intentions are not so clear, not so stable, and not so easy to control. We may even find ourselves trying to correct our intentions, which can become a subtle form of inner pressure or striving.

From a secular perspective, there’s another way to understand this term saṅkappa. Rather than translating it strictly as “intention,” it can also be understood as “imagination.” That shift opens something up. Instead of thinking about Right Intention as something we must get right, we can begin to explore how we imagine our lives—how we envision the kind of person we want to become, and the kind of world we want to participate in.

This connects very naturally with Reflective Meditation. Many of you have heard us talk about creativity in meditation for years—long before we encountered this translation. Creativity involves curiosity, exploration, trying things out, staying with something over time. And that’s very similar to what we’re doing in meditation. We’re not just stabilizing attention—we’re exploring experience. We’re allowing thoughts, feelings, and images to arise, not because we want to get lost in them, but because they reveal something about how we live.

Imagination plays a role in this. For example, I went to a concert recently, and the next day in meditation I found myself remembering someone there—a man in a wheelchair. He wasn’t central to my experience at the time, but in meditation I began imagining what his experience might have been like. Some of those imaginings were probably inaccurate, but what surprised me was the sense of connection that came from it. Imagination helped me move beyond my own perspective and feel a kind of kinship.

This is one of the ways imagination supports empathy. We often need to imagine ourselves into another person’s situation in order to care. And so, if we exclude thinking and imagining from meditation, we may be excluding a very important human capacity.

At the same time, Reflective Meditation is not suggesting that we indulge in fantasy or idealize who we could become. There’s another side to this. Imagination needs to be grounded. I know this very well from pottery. I’ve imagined many beautiful pots in meditation—forms, colors, glazes—but when I actually sit down with the clay, I encounter conditions: the texture of the clay, the firing process, the glaze interactions. Not everything I imagine can be created. But the imagining still plays a role. It opens possibilities, even if those possibilities need to be shaped by reality.

So we begin to see a balance here. Imagination can inspire intention, but conditions determine what is possible. If we imagine too far beyond what conditions support, we can feel disappointed or self-critical. So rather than chasing idealized intentions, we begin to ask: what is possible here, given these conditions?

This different way of relating to Right Intention is less about control and more about exploration. Less about getting it right, and more about understanding how imagination and conditions shape the direction of our lives.

Care and Curiosity — The Heart of Intention

In Reflective Meditation, we often talk about cultivating a soft, caring, curious stance toward our experience. This is not meant to be a high ideal or something we should always be able to do. Because as soon as it becomes a standard, it can feed the inner critic—that voice that tells us we’re not doing it right.

Many of us have a strong inner critic. It watches, evaluates, and tries to correct. And often, its intention is actually to help—to keep us safe, to help us succeed, to prevent mistakes. But the tone can be harsh. Part of the practice is becoming aware of that tone. Not trying to get rid of it, but being curious about it. What is this voice trying to do? What is its intention?

As we relate to it with a bit more care, something softens. We don’t have to believe everything it says. We’re not as identified with it. This is often how development happens—not by eliminating parts of ourselves, but by changing our relationship to them.

Care and curiosity are especially important when things are difficult. When we’re in pain, stressed, or struggling, the natural response is often to tighten, to resist, to become harsh. I’ve experienced this a lot with physical pain. The initial reaction is very strong. But when I’m able, even a little bit, to shift toward a more caring response—to be curious about the experience—it changes things. It doesn’t necessarily make the pain disappear, but it changes how I relate to it.

This is where the teaching of appamāda, or care, becomes so meaningful. The Buddha’s teaching to “tread the path with care” is not about perfection. It’s about responding to life as it is, with as much care as is possible in that moment. And that last part is important: as much as is possible. Because conditions matter. Sometimes we can be very open and caring. Sometimes we can’t. And that’s not a failure—it’s part of the reality we’re working with.

So rather than setting a high bar, we become curious about the conditions. When is care present? When is it absent? What supports it? What gets in its way? Over time, intentions begin to emerge—not ones we force, but ones that grow naturally. An intention to be a little more caring. A little more curious. A little more responsive to the conditions of our lives.

This intention doesn’t stand apart from the rest of the Eightfold Path. It flows into how we speak, how we act, how we relate to others. Imagination, awareness, and action all come together in ways that are not linear or predictable. And maybe that’s the final shift. Right Intention is not something we achieve once and for all. It’s something we live into, moment by moment, as we become more aware, more grounded, and more able to respond with care.