“Right intention has to come from the depth of the heart, not from its turbulent surface.” Ajahn Sucitto.
When in Bali, I walk in the early morning just as the sun begins its rise and before the day’s heat makes walking anywhere a sticky challenge. I pass Ketut, already up and cooking in her open shop, Wayan as he waits to drive his taxi, Kedek sipping his morning tea, Puspa sweeping her front walk. Each person pauses, smiles, and greets me: “Selamat pagi; Good morning!” A common custom is for each of them to add a second part to the greeting: “Mau ke mana?” “Where are you going?” I often pause and chat a bit longer in greeting and response.
“Mau ke mana?” “Where are you going?”
We westerners can sometimes be offended by that question; to our ears, it can seem a rude intrusion into the specifics of our day’s plan. I have learned, however, that, in Bali, that’s not at all how it’s meant. It’s not really about my physical destination. It is, rather, a deeply kind question, more like a friend back home asking “How are you today?”
“Selamat pagi; mau ke mana?” “Good morning. How am I today? Where am I going?” Asking myself is a reminder to remember. What is my intention? In this moment, in this circumstance, what is the inclination of my heart?
I thought of those Balinese greetings this morning as I sat to meditate. I can so often misunderstand the meditation teachings and can turn them into expectation of some special accomplishment in my daily practice. Rather than kind and simple guidance, I can find my mind offering relentless goals or harsh insistence that, to be worthy, today’s meditation must unfold in some particular way or must culminate in some noteworthy outcome. Then, too, my mind can be full of judgment: “Not there yet! Not yet quite good enough!” Ajahn Sucitto calls that the “law and order” approach to my spiritual practice.
Remembering those Balinese morning greetings brings me to a more kind balance. How is it now? Where, indeed, am I going? Might there be ease? Joy? Might there be a simple letting go of whatever is leading to struggle or affliction? Might there be kindness? Recognition of goodness and gratitude? Compassion for limitation and turbulence? Allowance for mistake and confusion? I think of the Buddha saying that he only taught about presence and awareness of suffering and its end, not about having some imagined destination that I must drive and judge myself toward.
I reflected on it as I poured my coffee and fed the kitty and made the bed. I contemplated as I read the flood of disturbing news headlines, and I thought of it when I worked in the garden and took out the trash. How is it now for me? What is the inclination of my heart just now? Where am I going?
I practiced with it still later today when I made a mistake. It was not a big-ish mistake; I just messed up our team’s work and schedule in a way that caused confusion for everyone: an ordinary day in this very human life. No dead bodies lying around: all of this, just run-of-the-mill pleasure and pain…. gain and loss…praise and blame…. fame and disrepute. Nevertheless, there was an ouch for me and for others as we, together, lost our balance a bit. Even now, I see my own brain’s move toward the busyness of a sticky turbulence that wishes that to be otherwise. Ouch. It’s like this just now.
“Mau ke mana?” Where am I going? Wise intention invites me now to pause and step back a bit, to rest in a deeper awareness of this moment’s turbulence, and to know it with a kind heart that lets go of all that is not so helpful. I see that dwelling in thoughts of reactivity or of shame and blame is more linked to habitual mental patterns created from long-ago traumas than to anything deeply true or useful in the present moment. It’s time to let go of giving energy to unhelpful and unrealistic expectations of myself or others.
Where am I going? How am I now? Deeply, truly? What is the condition of my heart? My practice invokes a kind and compassionate investigation of what leads to more balance and more ease for my human-y self and all those human-y others. I pause and stop to chat with myself a bit, looking deeply into the body’s experience, accepting what is, breathing with it. “It’s like this now.” Is there unnecessary suffering? I inquire. With a kind heart, I explore simple and quiet presence, listening to see what’s needed that will lead toward the end of suffering, here, now, with all of this.
“Mau ke mana?” How is my heart? Where am I going?
My friends in Bali continue to remind me.