0:00:06.9 Juan Alvarez: Would you like to be a better parent or a partner? Are you ready to break free from unwanted habits and get over the burden of the past? Maybe you would like to develop a healthier relationship with money or with food, or be able to lead with compassion. In all those matters, mindfulness can be a catalyst of change, and a resource that you can always tap into. My name is Juan Alvarez and I’m an executive coach and a mindfulness teacher. A teacher and a guide or a companion for people looking for attainable ways of being more present, peaceful and conscious in their lives. I have dedicated my life to exploring how mindfulness and meditation improve our relationship with the world and with the people around us. So tune in, if you want to build a solid meditation routine and learn different techniques that will also enhance the only practice that truly matters when it comes to being purposeful, life itself.
0:01:11.5 JA: Welcome to Life Is The Practice, friends. I’m happy to be back with you today to discuss such an important topic. So let’s dive in. I often hear from clients and students about how difficult it is to be consistent with the practice of living consciously with purpose. All of us who have seriously considered the path of mindfulness as a method for our personal and the spiritual development know that this is a path full of obstacles. We’re busy with our lives: Children, work, health and sometimes we forget about the practice. Other times we feel lazy or tired. Some days we might have a negative mindset and we experience difficult emotions like fear and insecurity, that tends need to control life. Other times we simply feel inadequate and we keep telling ourselves that we are not good enough. So one of the things that helps us the most is to examine our intention for the practice.
0:02:08.3 JA: Why do we do it? What drives us? Most of us seek to get or attain something that is not always easy to put into words. We want to solve our problems, acquire whatever seems to be missing. We seek to have more peace, resolve our anxiety, calm the mind, find spiritual connection or live with more happiness and joy. If we pause to reflect a little, we realize that our motivation is self-centered and focused on our personal experiences. This is what we refer to as egoic motivation. Although it might not seem like it, this motivation takes us away from the very things we must desire, because it locks us up in ourselves, feeding the experience of the egoic state. As discussed in episode one, the egoic state is our fundamental human problem, the source of endless suffering and unfulfilled want. Egoic motivation itself becomes an obstacle. So how do we solve this? We try to instead cultivate what’s called altruistic intention.
0:03:14.0 JA: It is a simple concept that can completely re-orient us and get us back on the right track. We say to ourselves, “I offer all the growth I will receive through the practice, including the release of everything that ails me for the benefit of others. I will grow and cultivate the skills to be more able to help others.” In my experience, working with this motivation is crucial to move forward on our path toward becoming mindful people. Although we may find some inner peace or become more present through our practice, without altruistic intention, we will inevitably remain stuck in our egoic state, unable to fully develop our potential. Plain and simple: When we make the benefit of others, the purpose of our work, the practice yields better results. We evolve faster with fewer difficulties and more grace. To help us delve into this topic today, we have the support of two guests. My first meditation teacher, Juan Manzanar, whom I began learning from in my early 20s, and one of my students, Artie Isaac. My teacher Juan has spent 12 years living in a monastery as a Buddhist monk. Today lives in Madrid, where he has been teaching meditation for over 30 years. He’s also a psychologist and a therapist.
0:04:35.4 Juan Manzanar: I met Buddhism in Nepal, in a Tibetan monastery. So when I was there, I didn’t trust these people and what they wanted to sell me. Yeah. But then when we started meditation, they would always say, the motivation to meditate is to be able to have the power, the wisdom to help all beings. And then I was shocked and I said, wow, that’s the motivation, this is something good. That’s what hooked me into Buddhism.
0:05:10.1 JA: Artie, is a poet and leads business peers groups in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I invited him to share his insights in this podcast because I believe a student’s perspective will also be of value to you.
0:05:22.6 Artie Isaac: My sole objective was to create the goods in my life, the goods for my performance. It was self-development, very focused on the self. And so when you suggested altruistic intent, I didn’t think at first that would have much importance. And then with the instruction from the practice, I repeated it to myself as I would begin meditation, as I would begin other things as well, I found that the altruistic intent was enormously important.
0:05:58.6 JA: Okay, so let us start by clarifying what altruistic intention really means.
0:06:03.9 JM: Many people ask, okay, let’s make that for peace. Like now, for peace in Ukraine, for peace in the world, that’s not the altruistic intention. The altruistic intention, is I want to grow, to be able to help people, to grow in wisdom, to grow in skillful means, to grow in compassion, to be able to help. So it’s very particular. I want to grow. I want to develop all my qualities to really, really be able to help. That’s the altruistic intention. So that’s why I meditate to develop my qualities, which are now sleeping.
0:06:45.5 JA: And this is what makes the altruistic intention so powerful. “I will work to develop all these skills, like presence, inner presence, alignment, compassion, gratitude that will help me transcend my limitations and embody my best self, so that I can genuinely help others.” The challenge is that we don’t naturally have this motivation, we have to work on it. So how can we activate our altruistic intention? I’m going to share with you a reflection that has always been inspiring to me.
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0:07:21.8 JA: None of the difficult experiences I have are unique to me. Millions of people have also experienced the very same things; fear, frustration, doubt, grief, exactly the same experience. None of my feelings are original.
0:07:43.2 JA: At the same time, all the good moments I have experienced were possible because of someone else’s love, dedication and generosity; my happiest moments, my accomplishments, my best days. This realization makes me want to contribute, help and add to other people’s lives in the same way I have received from so many different people, “But how can I help others when I’m trapped in my condition, mental and emotional patterns? My heart constricted by the limitations of the egoic state? To be of service, I need to break free from these limitations. I need to develop the abilities and the skills that allow me to embody my best self, only then can I genuinely help others.” The altruistic intention emerges and my practice happens with an interest in the happiness and well-being of others.
0:09:00.4 AI: There’s this Jewish tradition, when someone travels overseas, we give that person a dollar, just a dollar, maybe more, but a dollar is enough, and we say to the person, “Would you please give this to charity, to Tzedakah, when you get to the other place?” And it imbues their trip with a greater importance. The person’s trip has a heightened importance because they are going to deliver charity.
0:09:23.6 JA: I believe that something similar happens when we bring the altruistic intention to the next level, beyond meditation, and integrate it into other areas of life. It elevates the meaning of everything we do and becomes the compass guiding our actions in life.
0:09:38.9 AI: When you made the argument that upon going to bed and going to sleep, that sleep itself is an altruistic action, that’s where, oddly, ’cause that seems more far-fetched, that was more believable because a well-rested person the next day can be of more service in the world, it was immediately believable the first night I went to bed.
0:10:01.4 JA: And this is exactly how we integrate the altruistic intention into our lives. At first, we reflect on it, and although it might feel awkward or sound a little bit foreign, we still quietly repeat our intention before every meditation, then we do the same before undertaking all the daily activities. Little by little, we realize how beneficial it is, adding a deeper meaning to everything we do, and at some point, we realize it’s not just something important, is the only thing that matters.
0:10:31.3 JM: Your whole life, everything you do, we try always have this motivation, “Why I go to sleep, or why I relax, I see a movie? So I have more energy to help others, so I have more energy to study, to grow.” It doesn’t make sense it’s only the motivation for meditation, it has to be the motivation in your whole life.
0:10:52.5 JA: Dear friends, as we approach the end of this episode, I want to highlight that the altruistic intention is not a theoretical concept, it’s a practice that reveals its potential in the doing. As usual, I want to invite you to focus on our actions, what we can do, so we don’t get lost in the words. It all comes down to this, write your intention down in your own words. The main message is, “I want to grow to be there for others.” I will leave a link with a recorded example in the show notes. Open every meditation session with your intention. Regardless of the technique that you’re using, always start with your intention. There are certain meditation techniques like gratitude, love and compassion, that can be especially helpful for developing altruistic intention, those should be part of our regular meditation schedules.
0:11:45.2 JA: I will discuss these techniques in future episodes, but if you’d like to get us started right away, you can find a variety of guided meditations on my website. They are open to everyone. Just check the show notes for links. And lastly, I would ask that you try this, bring an altruistic intention even to your most mundane daily tasks; before a meal, as you drift off to sleep, while enjoying something on Netflix, try repeating your intention internally. Perhaps you remind yourself like, “I want to nourish my body, get some rest or relax, so that I have more energy to help others.” Of course, there’s much more that we could explore about the altruistic intention, it is such a rich topic, but for today, my goal was to offer you a concise introduction to this foundational practice. I hope it was useful and I look forward to meeting you again in our next episode.
0:12:38.3 JM: I have some theory. I don’t know if it’s true. Okay? I don’t know if it’s true, but my theory, people tell me, “You are very lucky. Why are you so lucky?” My theory is this altruistic intention. That’s why I’m lucky, not because I’m more clever or because some magical think, “Oh, how lucky.” No, it’s altruistic intention. See when you practice that, when you are like that in the world, things often work. I would say maybe so to prove or disprove my theory. Okay, let’s try. Let’s try one year of being, having just altruistic intention. If you are more lucky or less lucky. [chuckle]
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0:13:24.7 JA: Thank you for listening to this episode of Life Is The Practice Podcast. If you found it valuable, please subscribe, leave us a review, you might help others live better. And if you want to learn more about the practice, please explore the online course that is available to you at lifeisthepracticepodcast.com. Thank you and be well friends.
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