Hi Michael,
It happens automatically, but it's influenced by intention.
OK, let’s look into this.
There is a thought appearing ABOUT an intention, and then it’s followed by the action that the intention was about.
So one thing follows the other. This is all that we can actually notice.
But thoughts jump in quickly trying to make sense of this mystery called life, and asserts the idea of cause and effect. One even causes the other.
But in reality, there are no separate events. It’s one movement, without division.
But thought artificially divides the whole into part, thus creating the illusion of separation, and then making claims about cause and effect.
And of course, cause and effect can be useful concepts in everyday life, but nevertheless they are just concepts.
Actually it’s an attempt to create safety for the fictional me, by asserting I know how things are.
But this process is about investigating these assertions and be open to
not knowing.
So just look closely, can you OBSERVE an actual link between an intention and the act that follows it?
Is there an actual link between them? Or it’s just assumed to be there by thoughts?
So if there's an intention to stay in touch with the present (e.g. in meditation) then I "wake up" from being lost in thought and reconnect with the present moment more often.
Can you see that this is a thought-based explanation trying to grasp this mystery and put into a box by making a logical conclusion that one is caused the other?
And that intention consists of thoughts - the thoughts that feel most like "me".
And how does the thought of “I intent to stay in touch with the present’ FEELS to be me?
Where is this FEELING located exactly?
And more importantly, who or what is making this intention?
Is there a Michael, a me making an intention? Or thoughts ABOUT intention just appear on their own, with the words of ‘I intent’?
Is there an actual real I here now, in this very moment behind this thought?
Look here now.
All discoveries can ever happen here now, in experience.
Never in story land.
It feels like those thoughts about intention are the "I"
Are you saying that the thoughts of intention = I?
Are you saying that you are a thought? Is that so?
And the sensations in my head, behind my eyes. But when I look closely, they are just sensations and thoughts, and I can't find anything that's producing the thoughts.
But don’t you believe that you are thinking those thoughts?
So how do think the thought “I intent…”?
How do you make this thought to appear?
Where do get the letters from?
How do you put them together into a coherent sentence?
How do you create a thought out of nothing? From scratch?
Vivien
