How do we know what our intentions are?

The Watercooler
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So, how do we know? Intention plays a key role on the Path; it’s directly linked to kamma-vipaka and in this one famous sutta, intention (cetanā) and kamma are said to be essentially the same:

“Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & intellect.”

If our minds, though, are tainted by ignorance in general and by a gazillion individual defilements - then how can we really know what our intentions are at any given point in time? In my experience, we often believe that our intentions are noble but they might not always be.
Maybe we tricked ourselves into believing that this one particular act of kindness was born out of readiness to help others but then in retrospect we find that it was really more about us wanting to feel good or being applauded.

I understand the gradual training to yield results in this regard, i.e. we increasingly become aware of our defilements, our ignorance and hence get better at self-assessing our intentions but still I would like to know what others think.

There’s a related thread which touches upon some of the questions raised here:

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It is tricky.

  1. Partially I prefer the translation “motivation” instead of “intention” as it’s important to undercut your rationalizations and get to the emotions underlying things.
  2. This, of course, requires some mindfulness practice and a commitment to honesty. So the meditation training and the training in sīla help.
  3. The Buddha told Rahula to examine his actions like one might examine their reflection in a mirror. Many times it’s only after the fact that we can ask “why did I do that?!” So by paying close attention to our behavior we can sometimes discern the motives that we’re trying to hide from ourselves.

In short, we have to use the whole path to overcome ignorance. Who knew? :rofl:

Best!

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I think you’ve got it right here. An important part of the practice is distinguishing what is wholesome and what is unwholesome. These things become more clear with practice, study, and a tincture of time.

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This is where the Buddha talks about bright and dark deeds with bright and dark results -AN4.233 for example. He says that it’s a very human thing, because we don’t have the clarity of mind.

We therefore keep purifying our View, which keeps purifying our intentions which then purifies our actions, our mindfulness etc

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Just to add to the theme of the answers:

And what fuels the arising of the awakening factor of investigation of principles, or, when it has arisen, fully develops it?
There are qualities that are skillful and unskillful, blameworthy and blameless, inferior and superior, and those on the side of dark and bright.
Frequent rational application of mind to them fuels the arising of the awakening factor of investigation of principles, or, when it has arisen, fully develops it. (SN 46.51)

Though the mindfulness awakening factor comes before this.

If an unusually pure motivation arises in your mind, you will probably be able to recollect it, even years or decades later. Probably because the purity tends to create clarity of mind, which makes it easier to remember.

It’s part of the law of kamma that good kamma creates a pleasant result, so you cannot really avoid feeling good if you do wholesome things. The Buddha actually highly encourages us to reflect on our own good actions and how they (will eventually) create happiness for us.

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This is interesting. If you don’t mind me asking Bhante, do you think that emotions are more ‘trustworthy’ than what the mind fabricates (thoughts, rationalizations). By thoughts I mean any kind of thoughts: random thoughts but also thoughts that direct our actions/govern our choices (this is how I understand sankappa). And emotions are pure and are therefore more close to what really motivates us?

Yeah, this would be in line with the sutta Ven. Pasanna quoted.

I wonder if it is still possible that good intenions can actually yield bad results (like in the saying “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”). Probably not according to this sutta. :thinking:

So, that would be something like the ‘default mode’ of our actions done by unenlightened human beings.

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I wouldn’t say they’re pure but I would say they are closer to what really motivates us yes. Though of course what and how we feel changes depending on what and how we think also so it’s not so simple!

What I meant was that kusala kamma and akusala kamma is determined by whether the action was motivated by e.g. compassion or greed, by kindness or hatred, etc. That is, emotions.

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This discussion reminds me of the neurological study that was published a while ago. Basically, some doctors got around to sending a pulse in the brain that triggers the subject to raise their left hand. Then they ask the subjects “Why did you raise your hand?”

Well the answer should be “I didn’t. It just happened.” But what actually happened was that subjects started to make up reasons for why they raised their hands. They rationalised their intention only after the fact.

Personally, I think the most straightforward way to read Buddha’s aforementioned quote is to see “Action is the materialisation of intention” and less about “Killing a person with good intentions / killing a person with bad intentions” kind of dichotomy.

Sometimes it might seem that the same action done with different intentions have different results - it’s only because those things were never the same action to begin with, and it’s just our approximation and conceptualisation that registers two similar events as “the same thing”.

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Is this query about hidden “intentions” addressed in the Suttas?

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For me, that sounds like the path is working! That faculty of retrospective analysis and acknowledging a hidden intention illuminates the path ahead. Sometimes this manifests as the hinderance of restlessness and remorse (uddhaccakukkucca) in meditation, which steers our future intentions.

Understanding that the processes that we call ‘intentions’ are fully causally conditioned is useful. It’s not our responsibility to attain better intentions (they can never be completely pure), our Noble kalyāṇa-mitta will do that for us (if they are good trainers and we can be tamed :wink: ). Eventually (if the path takes hold) intentions, like kamma cease, and that too is due to causal conditioning.

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To me, a person with this problem is already quite far along the path. It’s light years ahead of a person who does unkind acts to feel good or be applauded. And yes, such people exist, who don’t even understand what’s good or bad. I’d take a society of people who do good to feel good about themselves any day, thank you very much!

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Mindfulness will answer that question.

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For me there is only one answer: honesty.
Being completely honest to oneself and intentions will show their true face.

Most people know that they are doing wrong but they find excuses why it’s ok doing something.

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As to this… right view comes first. And how… does right view come first? If one comprehends that wrong purpose is wrong purpose and comprehends that right purpose is right purpose, that is… right view. And what… is wrong purpose? Purpose for sense-pleasures, purpose for ill-will, purpose for harming. This… is wrong purpose. And what… is right purpose? Now I… say that right purpose is twofold. There is… the right purpose that has cankers, is on the side of merit, and ripens unto cleaving (to new birth). There is… the right purpose which is [noble], cankerless, supermundane, a factor of the Way. And what… is the purpose which is on the side of merit, and ripens unto cleaving? Purpose for renunciation, purpose for non-ill-will, purpose for non-harming. This… is right purpose that… ripens unto cleaving. And what… is the right purpose that is [noble], cankerless, supermundane, a component of the Way? Whatever… is reasoning, initial thought, purpose, an activity of speech through the complete focussing and application of the mind in one who, by developing the [noble] Way, is of [noble] thought, of cankerless thought, and is conversant with the [noble] Way–this… is right purpose that is [noble], cankerless, supermundane, a component of the Way.

(MN 117, tr. Pali Text Society vol. III pp 113-121)

“of cankerless thought”–the cankers being the three cravings: “craving for the life of sense”, “craving for becoming”, and “craving for not-becoming” (DN 22; PTS vol. ii p 340). When the cankers are “destroyed”, the roots of the craving for sense-pleasures, the roots of the craving “to continue, to survive, to be ” (tr. “bhava”, Bhikkyu Sujato), and the roots of the craving not “to be ” (the craving for the ignorance of being ) are destroyed.

The cankers are only completely destroyed in the individual who is enlightened, and enlightenment is apparently more a function of having seen past habitations and future arisings than of any practice of concentration (on the concentrations, see MN 70; tr. Pali Text Society vol. 2 pp 151-154).

But perhaps cankerless thought doesn’t require the complete destruction of the cankers–one would hope!

Nevertheless, I think it’s the cessation of action Gautama points toward, although that’s a function of the states of concentration–cessation of action meaning the cessation of habit and volition in action.

The state of concentration most often mentioned in the sermons I think is the fourth, wherein habit and volition in the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation ceases. That’s also the state in which Gautama turned his mind to past habitations and future arisings. Key to being ceased with regard to the breath is the understanding that the ligaments of the body can regulate the reciprocal activity of proximal agonist/antagonist muscle groups (Indahl, A., et al., “Sacroiliac joint involvement in activation of the porcine spinal and gluteal musculature”, Journal of Spinal Disorders, 1999. 12[4]: p. 325-30). Realizing the stretch of ligaments and the associated reciprocal innervation that follows through “laying hold of one-pointedness” is a way to relinquish “latent conceits that ‘I am the doer, mine is the doer’ in regard to this consciousness-informed body” (from MN 109, Pali Text Society vol. III p 68).

The abandonment of latent conceits with regard to the body is at least a start on cankerless thought, even if Gautama was able to proceed from there to seeing past habitations and future arisings and I don’t believe I ever will.

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There is also the phenomena of hypnotic suggestion–the hypnotist suggests that the person’s arm is getting lighter, starting to rise, and it does. I’ve never heard of anyone asking the subject afterward why their arm rose, though.

Wonder what people would think, if the action suggested was coupled to an event in the future, after they came out of hypnosis–I believe such suggestions can be made, though I’m not sure about that.

Kobun Chino Otogawa once said, “you know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around” (he said that at a lecture at S. F. Zen Center that I attended). Eihei Dogen said, “although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent” (Genjo Koan, tr. Tanahashi).

Not all who experience the cessation of habit and volition in the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation experience zazen getting up and walking around. Part of why they don’t I think is that tendency for people to cling to the belief that “I am the doer, mine is the doer” with regard to the consciousness-informed body.

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Yeah, they’ll make up a reason.

Tellingly, as people practice more mindfulness they are less susceptible to hypnosis.

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Thanks everyone for the input so far - there have been some helpful responses!!

I’m wondering if there is some sort of assessment in regards to the ‘power’ of intentions. It should make a difference, karmically speaking, if one has a strong or weak determination to do something.
Do the suttas/the commentaries speak of intentions ranging from weak to strong?

Does it make a difference in regard to the potency of intentions if the subject’s consciousness is clouded? If the subject is an adult or a child?

Or do the different Pali words that usually get translated as intention allude to this?
In another thread sankappa was linked to a more general form of intention whereas cetana would refer to more specific intentions.

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I don’t remember the reference right now, this might be in the vinaya, but a monk dreams he kills the Buddha, and he goes to the Buddha to ask if this means he’s transgressed the rule on killing in the vinaya.

The Buddha says the monk hasn’t transgressed, because the intentions in dreams aren’t very strong (I’m paraphrasing).

So there seems to be a difference in the “strength” of intention.

Nevertheless, there is probably just as much power (if not more) in consistent “weak” intentions over time that form into habits. E.g. small acts of kindness over time.

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Khemarato.bhikkhu

5d

Yeah, they’ll make up a reason.

Tellingly, as people practice more mindfulness they are less susceptible to hypnosis.

That’s interesting, but I’m wondering what you’re basing your assertion on? Did you conclude that from personal experience, was there research done somewhere?

I read “Battle for the Mind” by Sargant a long time ago, and in that book he asserts based on his own research that people who resist suggestion are actually more susceptible. The only folks who are immune to brainwashing, he said, are the certifiably insane.

That doesn’t say anything about mindfulness and hypnosis directly, but I think it implies that the sane and mindful are not immune to the phenomena involved in suggestion.

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Mindfulness can be operationalized as facets of observing and non-reactivity.

“facets of observing and non-reactivity were negatively associated with hypnotizability”

A non-judgmental approach entails allowing experience to be one’s experience without
adding on layers of expectancy, judgment or self-criticism about having this experience. This
non-judgmental approach is a central tenet of Kabat-Zinn’s widely cited definition of
mindfulness, and is a capacity of mind that is directly targeted within the practice of
mindfulness meditation (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). Non-judgment notably diverges from
hypnotizability, which often involves responding to suggestive images to cultivate an
experience that is judged to be pleasant or more tolerable (cf. Kogan, et al., 1998). The
current finding that non-judgment was unrelated to hypnotizability
 provides further evidence supporting a distinction between these constructs, 
and also possibly between mindfulness- based interventions and hypnosis.

The describing and acting with awareness facets also showed non-significant associations with hypnotizability in the current study, suggesting that these mindfulness facets – which have been associated with alexithymia and “stepping out of auto pilot,” respectively – are also unique and unrelated to hypnotic suggestibility (Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, & Toney; 2006; Baer et al., 2008).

Gloede, M. E., Sapp, M., & Van Susteren, W. (2021). Hypnosis and mindfulness meditation: The power of suggestibility. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 69(4), 411-421.

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