Step Two Notes -- Wise Intention
I like the term: pure intention. in the sense of unadulterated. Most of our intentions are intertwined with other intentions and the human mind can only take so much of this "intertwining" before it starts to take shortcults. If "first do no harm" is my first thought prior to any action. there is a pretty good chance that i will try my best to insure that my action is harmless. if i have a list of priorities in which "winning" comes first and "harmlessness" second there is more chance that my action will not be harmless. If harmlessness if fifth or seventh, or tenth in imporantance i am very likely to hurt people in the process of winning. Modern life almost insures that our intentions will be impure and multi-tasking is only the most recent glitch in that intertwining of intentions. Tom O'Day called this "mixed motivation" and specified that it was one of the dillemmas of institutions, especially institutionalized religion. If religious office confers social status then religious duties may take a back seat to status needs.
Wise intention may arise out of wise understanding or perception, but different understandings may give rise to similar intentions. The "understandings" of East Asia. South Asia. the West, and aboriginal socities around the world are very different from one another but the "Golden Rule" of Ancient Egypt is known and honored almost everywhere (except, of course, where there are "more important" things going on). No one wants harm to come them, everyone should wish that harm does not come to others.
I guess i could take Krishna's advice to Arjuna about how slayers can't truly slay and how the slain cannot truly be slain so i should just play out my socially (or divinely) assigned role. But my understanding has not developed to that level yet. In my illusionary world, soldiers die, often killing others before they go. In my illusionary world, aborted fetuses die, causing pain to clinic staff, family members, and pro-lifers/anti-abortionists.
I was a "hawk" between my seventh and twelth years. The bombing of Pearl Harbor made me a hawk, the bombing of Hiroshima made me a pacifist. I still am one. There are still hawks, though their cries seem to have become less shrill. But most people are doves, neither pacifists nor hawks. They prefer peace where peace seems possible and accept war where war seems inevitable. In fact, haven't i just described everybody except a few psychopaths, sadists, and power "eaters?" As a pacifist. doves and hawks are not ememies, nor are "terrorists" nor foreign armies. Only war iself is the enemy. I have vowed never to participate in any war or in any thing called a war. (Although i do sometimes get caught up in the "class war," usually to my later regret.)
In the fight between "choice" and "life" i find that i am not a "pacifist" but a dove. I prefer that every life be extended in time for as long as possible but accept that death is inevitable. sometimes early and sometimes late. I will argue against every specifiic abortion that comes to my attention while recognizing that i will sometimes lose (and deserve to lose) the argument. I will never ask the law to interfere with a mother's right to choose.
I was a product of incestuous rape. Both my mother and her rapist were member of a religion that opposes abortion. I suspect that she never considered aborting me, though i never was impolite enough to ask. But anti-abortionist sometimes put thoughts in the minds and words in the mouths of the unborn, and i have often wondered how "i" (more my real Self then than now) might have reacted to her decision. I hope i would have applauded her decision, whatever it was.
The intention of harmlessness must be carefully nurtured. In or out of sangha (i am by necessity out), with or without a teacher ( i have chosen not to hunt for one just now) the intention of harmlessness is not easy, Many Buddhists are vegetarians and i respect that; but suppose i decide that plants are "sentient beings" (as they certainly are). Starving myself would not be harmless.
Human beings may not be able to solve the dillemma of duality and non-duality. The world of illusion seems all too real and its reality is firmly established in our being long before we know we have a choice.