The Rivers of Karma
December 07, 2008
When you’re meditating, you’re engaging in a form of karma, which the Buddha identified with intention. The intention here is to stay with the breath, to try to be fully aware of the breath element in the body, throughout the whole body. You want to maintain that intention in the face of all the other intentions that are going to come up in the course of the hour. It’s to be expected. Vagrant thoughts will come into the mind about tomorrow, about today, yesterday. And you’ve got to realize that those thoughts are not in line with the original intention. No matter how useful or important they may seem, they’re not what you want right now. You’re trying to be very clear about what your intention is right now and how to stick with it.