In a talk translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, the Thai forest teacher Ajahn Lee Dhammadharo explores the importance of intent.
He begins with the image of a child who tells their parents they are going to school but ends up at a cinema or a show. The parents think the child is at school, and until they learn the truth, they lose time. The child harms themselves in four ways: they create bad karma by deceiving their parents, waste the money paid for tuition, remain ignorant, and draw closer to death day by day without having learned even three letters.
In the same way, Ajahn Lee says, when someone has no true intent in their practice, they come and sit in meditation, but their mind is not with their body. It wanders through thoughts of home, children or grandchildren, people and situations. Their eyes are closed, but their mind slips into various activities, as though playing with dogs and cats. The practitioner then harms themselves in the same four ways: they deceive the teacher, the teacher teaches to no effect, they remain ignorant even if they sit for three years, and when death comes, they die in pain without inner wealth.
By contrast, someone who truly intends to practise the Dharma will certainly see results, small or large depending on their strength.
If you are going to meditate, you must intend to meditate. If you are going to listen to the teaching, intend to listen. If you are going to speak, intend to speak. Whatever you do, you must bring intent to what you are doing. That is how you will get the results you want.
For there to be results, Ajahn Lee explains, intent must consist of the four bases of success. The first is chanda: liking what you do; if you are meditating, being content to stay aware of the breath. The second is viriya: being persistent and not getting discouraged; even if there is pain in the body, enduring it. The third is citta: giving your whole mind to what you are doing, without playing around or letting it wander. The fourth is vimansa: when you are actually meditating, reflecting on what creates a sense of peace and ease in the body and mind.
When meditation fully includes these four factors, it is like sitting on a chair with four sturdy legs. You do not fear that it will tip or fall. By contrast, someone sitting on a chair with two legs or one risks toppling over if someone touches them. But if you sit on a chair with four sturdy legs, even if someone pushes you or shakes the chair, you do not fear falling; even if they lift it and move it, you can sit comfortably.
This is what happens when you make your mind firm and strong in the goodness of your actions. You can sit and lie down at ease; whether at the monastery or at home, you live at ease. You can eat or fast and be at ease; have a lot of work or a little; have millions or not a penny. When death comes, you can die at ease, without pain.
When someone succeeds, the devas applaud with joy; when they fail, the devas frown, and Mara and his companions laugh because they have defeated a disciple of the Buddha.
The teacher stresses that we must use skill and merit to polish ourselves until we shine. We polish our actions with virtue, concentration and discernment.
When you train the mind in concentration until it becomes strong, it becomes calm and cool, bright like still water in a deep well or like the stars in the sky. Obstacles cannot overwhelm you, because the level of the mind keeps rising. When it rises high, it becomes cool: just as when we climb two or three kilometres above the Earth's surface, we immediately feel cold, and our eyes can see things far away. When we speak of a high level of mind, we do not mean that it flies like an aeroplane, but that the quality of awareness has been raised through training in concentration and discernment.
Then you can see the causes and effects of all things true and false, the dangers of wandering through death and rebirth, and feel disillusioned with birth, ageing, illness and death, seeing them as pain and suffering. You lose all craving for sights, sounds, smells, tastes, sensations and ideas, and your sole intent is to develop the heart so that you can free yourself from all the mind's defilements and fermentations, never to return to the cycle of death and rebirth.
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