In a comment to the post How To Meditate: Inquire, Negate, Repeat., Doug wrote:
I have found me – through meditative investigating in this way. ..Here it is:
I am intent or intention.
This is active at all levels of consciousness, even in dreams we still have intent. Of coarse I am not my thoughts or concepts, I am not my feelings, but clearly I have come to the conclusion that I am ‘that which intends’. Even single celled organisms display the behavior of having intent – at a rudimentary level.
So yes, contrary to Buddhist claims, there is a truly existing, inherently existing, verifiable self that really is actually findable through meditative analysis. It is intent and intent is both individual and primary, and is fundamental to all life I believe. You can’t even pursue “enlightenment”, awakening, truth, or awareness or whatever you wish to call it without intent.
Please show me where I am wrong on this – email me if you wish.
My response is too lengthy to place in a comment box, so I thought I would reply with a post dedicated to the topic.
Seeing intention for what it really is can be tricky at first. As Doug alludes to in his comment, intention obviously precedes action. In fact, the very first passage in the Dhammapada says:
Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.
Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.
In the above passage, the Buddha acknowledges that intention arises prior to thinking or doing. In the same way that an architect first conceives of a building in her mind prior it its being constructed from form, so an intention arises prior to even the simplest of actions, e.g. standing, sitting, bending, stretching, reflecting, etc. But can this process of intention be considered a lasting, inherently existing, I/Me/Mine? From the Buddhist point of view, the answer is no.
Just like all of the other processes that may arise in consciousness, intention is a conditioned/compounded phenomena based on transient conditions. It is not as though there is but one intention that lasts throughout one’s life. Rather, it is always momentary and based on fleeting conditions. For me to intend to bend my arm, for instance, I first need to have an arm to bend. Also, will my arm bend if I intend to picture a flower in my mind? Most likely not. And once the intention arises, it immediately passes. Because of its fleeting, impersonal nature, intention is marked by the Three Characteristics of all conditioned phenomena, which are: (1) anicca (impermanence), (2) anatta (nonself), and (3) dukkha (suffering). Whatever is marked by these characteristics cannot be called I, Me, or Mine from a Buddhist point of view (which just happens to be true).
One way to realize the selfless nature of the process of intention is through the practice of vipassana meditation (see Kenneth Folk’s Basic Meditation Instructions). As one makes progress with the practice, they will move through a series of predictable stages known as The Progress of Insight. The first of these stages is called Analytical Knowledge of Mind & Body, in which the yogi notices, “the pairwise occurrence of an object and the knowing of it, such as the rising and awareness of it, the falling and awareness of it [...] Through concentrated attention (mindfulness) he knows how to distinguish each bodily and mental process: ‘The rising movement is one process,the knowing of it is another; the falling is one process, the knowing of it is another’”(*). So in this stage, the yogi is able to notice the impermanent nature of consciousness, as it arises and passes with each object of attention.
The second insight stage, which is particularly relevant to this topic, is called Knowledge of Cause & Effect. The yogi begins to notice that, “the conscious state of an intention is evident before a bodily movement occurs. The meditator first notices that intention.” Furthermore, “Now, at this more advanced stage, [...] he notices first the conscious state of intention to make a bodily movement; then he notices the particular bodily movement.”(**) Prior to this stage, the yogi is able notice, “intending, intending,” when intention arises, but they also tend to notice the arising of other objects prior to noticing the complete passing of the prior object. This may be way the nature of intention is not seen clearly until the second insight stage. For, at the Cause & Effect stage, “only after cognizing the disappearance of an object, do they notice the new object that arises. Thus they have a clear knowledge of the initial, the intermediate, and final phases of the object noticed.” (***) This allows the yogi to see intention more clearly, resulting in the knowledge that it, too, is impermanent, selfless, and unsatisfactory – neither I, Me, or Mine.
So if you, like Doug, have reached a preliminary conclusion that your fundamental nature is intention, I would encourage you to dig deeper into your experience to see if it holds up to further reality testing. In my experience, intention is but another process which comes and goes in an instant, and is always based on conditions.
All citations from Practical Insight Meditation by Ven. Mahashi Sayadaw.
* p. 16
** p. 17
*** p. 21
