I would like to invite you all to join me in this short reflective practice focused particularly on setting your intentions.
This meditation practice is referred to as intention setting and it's adapted from a Tibetan practice and it's an important part of those who wish to actually exercise their compassion muscle on a daily basis.
And the aim of this intention setting practice is two things.
One is to connect with our deeper aspirations,
What we truly wish in our lives for ourselves,
For others and for the world.
And the second purpose of that is to then inform our intention by these aspirations so that we accept conscious intention on a daily basis.
So I would like to invite you all to join me,
Find a comfortable posture and settle your mind by resting your attention on your breathing or maybe choosing a focus on part of your body where you feel a contact like your hands resting on your knees.
The point is to slow down your mind and experience and feel that restfulness so that your mind becomes quieter.
Now from that place of relative settled state of mind,
Let's ask ourself the following question.
What is it that I truly wish for myself from the depth of my heart?
Happiness,
Love,
Connection,
Meaning,
Joy,
Purpose.
Just ask that question and let the answers surface.
And if nothing specific comes up,
Don't worry,
Just stay with the energy of that open question.
What is it that I truly wish for myself?
Let's now ask the second question.
What is it that I truly wish from the depth of my heart for my loved ones,
The people in my life?
Happiness,
Prosperity,
Love,
Purpose.
Again as before,
Just stay with the energy of the question and let whatever answers come up,
Just simply notice them.
Let's now ask the third question.
What is it that I truly wish for the world from the depth of my heart?
More compassion,
More tolerance,
More justice,
More equity,
More safety.
Let the answers come up and if nothing specific comes up,
Don't worry,
Just stay with the energy of that question.
What is it that I truly wish to see in the world?
Having asked these three questions and reflected upon them,
Let's now make the conscious choice that I will strive to have these aspirations inform my day-to-day intention.
To find deeper connection in my life,
To bring more love,
More kindness and more understanding in my interaction with people in my life and in the way in which I relate to the world.
We can now bring our attention back on our breathing and noticing the air coming in and going out and then attention back into our body as if noticing for the first time the points of contact whether it is your feet flat on the ground,
Your arms,
Hands resting on your knees.
And when you are ready,
You can open your eyes.
This is a standard intention-setting practice.
As I explained before,
There are two aspects to this.
One is to connect with our deeper aspirations and all of us do have deeper aspirations.
And then the second part is to then allow these aspirations to inform our everyday intention.
So you would notice that when we were exploring these questions,
On the first two,
The answers are pretty much the same.
What is it that we wish truly for ourselves?
Love,
Joy,
Human connection,
Meaning.
And you will see you aspire for the same thing for the loved ones in your life.
Now the third question is really more about the values that matter to you.
For some it may be justice,
For some it may be compassion and so on.
So we will see the answers in the third question gives you the kind of values that matter to you.
So once in a while,
Finding a way to connect with these deeper aspirations is important because even though we all have aspirations,
But often we don't pay conscious attention to them.
So we don't allow the deeper aspirations to inform our intention.
For the conscious intention-setting,
Then you can be more practical.
In the tradition,
Of course,
The suggestion is to do it early in the morning and then in the evening briefly review your intention that you set in the morning and the synergy with the actual reality of everyday life so that you can improve.
But you can also use this intention-setting practice in a practical way for specific purposes.
For example,
If as a parent you need to have a difficult conversation with your teenage child,
Before just plunging into the actual conversation,
It is good to first connect with your intention.
Say,
What is it that I want in this conversation?
How do I want to show up?
And then take a deep breath,
Connect with your aspiration,
Set your conscious intention and show up.
And you will see a real difference in the actual interaction,
You know,
When you have the conversation.
Same thing you can apply,
You know,
For other things.
And then when you finish the conversation,
It's helpful to briefly reflect on how you did it,
What you did it,
You know,
What happened.
So that's why the intention-setting is a simple exercise and it can be done in a very short time.
You know,
It need not take more than a minute in a specific context.
But you will notice it really has quite a power to really help you really,
You know,
Sort of move in a direction in the way in which you would want.
Because often we may have good intentions,
But because we don't set it consciously,
We end up being reactive and end up acting in a way that is actually contrary to the aspirations we have.
So that's why I personally find intention-setting practice really,
Really helpful on a daily basis.
And thank you for joining me.
