Intention and dedication in meditation
Revisiting why we meditate in the first place
Text: Toby Ouvry
As the new year is here, it’s a good opportunity to revisit our approach towards meditation and mindfulness, and to ground ourselves once more with renewed purpose and direction. Renowned mindfulness teacher and trainer with 15 years of coaching experience, Toby Ouvry, shares his advice on how we can gain more intention and dedication in our meditation practices and in life moving forward.
Why are you meditating?
Sometimes, the repetitive act of meditating everyday can lose its meaning if we aren’t sure of the reason behind why we’re actually meditating. Toby suggests for us to really articulate why we’re meditating as a way of setting the energy when we start. For example, instead of simply viewing meditation as a way to deal with stress, you can think:
“I am doing this meditation practice to bring strength, balance and calm to myself, to bring benefit and wellbeing to my circle of influence (friends, family colleagues etc) and to contribute to the wellbeing and balance of all beings on earth, and the Earth herself.”
By setting aside a small amount of time to make clear of your intentions at the beginning of your sessions, you’ll feel a significant shift when you meditate – the act gains meaning and power with focused purpose and you’re now able to send the energy from your meditation out into the world to bring conscious benefit and well-being.
Directing through dedicating
Just as you begin your meditations with purpose, the end should carry meaning as well. Dedicate a few moments after your sessions to think of what you hope to achieve through meditation, for example:
“May my meditation be a cause for my own inner strength and wellbeing,
May it enable me to bring benefit and love to my circle of influence,
And may it be a cause for the wellbeing and balance of all beings on Earth”
If you’d like, compose your own little intention and dedication verses – whichever method and words that best resonate with you. For these after-session segments, Toby suggests to include three levels: myself, my circle of influence and the global community as a whole. Otherwise, you can also dedicate this part to particular groups of people, or towards the resolution of specific issues or challenges.
The tradition of intention and dedication
Why should we include intention and dedication in our meditation sessions? According to the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition, these two values are crucial to the act of meditation, and provide purpose and direction to your sessions. By simply spending a few moments on the intention to love and bring benefit to others or yourself, it can really change your experience of what you’re currently going through. In mindfulness terms, we should be asking “Why and for what am I doing this?” often to develop conscious intention behind our actions.
Applying intention and dedication to other activities
Besides applying intention and dedication to our meditation sessions, the same principle works for all of our other actions and activities. Get into the habit of setting intention and dedication in all that you do, think or say – like going green to increase the well-being of our planet, showing your colleagues appreciation to boost the morale in your workplace, or even eating with the intention of channeling more energy into your work and social interactions later on. With a clearer purpose behind everything, we can show up to radiate more good energy into the world instead of just being. Although there is no guaranteed effect behind placing more intention and dedication into our thoughts and actions, Toby believes that we will feel the energy we give returning to us many-folds in various ways eventually.
Toby Ouvry is an experienced mindfulness teacher and trainer of 20 years, and the author of the book ‘Engaged Mindfulness – What mindfulness is and how we can apply it to our daily lives’. He is also the founder and principle facilitator at Integral Meditation Asia, where he delivers mindfulness programs to both the public and corporate sectors. Toby’s passion lies in empowering people and organisations to greater levels of capability, effectiveness, creativity and well-being through the applied practice of mindfulness and meditation. To book a session or attend one of his group classes visit http://tobyouvry.com/
