Awareness, View, and Conduct

Last week was published the completion of the advanced course The Awareness of Awareness. It invites you to gain insight into the nature of the mind based on the vision "My view is as vast as space, but my attention to actions and their effects is finer than flour", as expressed by the eight-century Indian contemplative Padmasambhava. Click here for more info.

The Role of Motivation and View in Meditation

As with any other action, when we begin to practice meditation, it is essential to be sure about our motivation. For it is our motivation—altruistic or self-centred, vast or limited—that will provide a positive or negative direction to our journey and influence its results. 
When effecting any real change, there will be challenges and obstacles. True transformation requires continuous effort and commitment. We cannot just wish to have better self-awareness, clarity and inner strength. That is no more than wishful thinking and will not translate into real change. 
The obstacles within and challenges around us should not discourage us but be viewed as catalysts for further progress. These can help us refine our vision and conduct along the path.
It is important to generate a clear vision and recalibrate one's motivation, and we definitely need to put our aspiration into practice. They enable us to make everyday choices based on a clear idea of one's own possibilities.

What is your vision of a good life? 

In these challenging times, We invite you to incorporate your own vision of the path with the Conative Intelligence and Flourishing course.
In four sessions, we contemplate four questions:
  • What is your vision of a good life, your vision of what would truly bring you happiness, a sense of fulfilment, satisfaction and meaning?
  • In order to realize your own vision, your own aspirations for genuine happiness and fulfilment, what would you love to receive from the world around you?
  • What tendencies, habits, hold you back, perhaps harming yourself and others? What qualities would help you on the path of your own genuine happiness? 
  • Your own happiness is intricately intertwined with others' happiness. In order to lead the most meaningful life possible, what would you love to offer to the world? 
The course will help you connect the dots between where you are today and accomplishing this path.
What would you love to offer to the world so that when you come to the end of your life, and you're looking back, you will do so with the certainty that you've offered your best?
—Alan Wallace, Conative Intelligence and Flourishing course

Useful Definitions

  • Conation: the mental faculty of purpose, desire, and volition;
  • Conative intelligence: the ability to discern which desires and intentions truly lead to one’s own and others’ wellbeing and to then adopt them, while releasing desires and intentions that undermine one’s own and others’ wellbeing.
  • The Perfection of Conative Intelligence: Having the wisdom to desire only that which is truly beneficial to oneself and others in this life.
  • Psychological Flourishing: A sense of well-being that is not contingent on external or internal stimuli, and is qualified by serenity, joy, and contentment, rather than excitement and arousal. Derives from conative, attentional, cognitive, and affective balance.
Photo: Matthieu Ricard.
Continue

News

View all

The Foundations of Vipashyana

New contemplation on true happiness

New Course: A Taste of Inner Freedom

The Foundations of Vipashyana

New reflections in your toolbox

When our beliefs are challenged

Meditation and our emotional landscape

Explore Imagine Clarity by Topic

Creativity and Meditation

What is Your Vision?

The Union of Stillness and Motion

A Path of Insight Continues

Mindfulness of Phenomena: A Path of Insight: …

A Path of Insight: Mindfulness of the Mind (3/4)

Mindfulness of Sensations: A Path of Insight (2/4)

A Path of Insight: Mindfulness of the Body (1/4)

Starting where you are

New Awareness of Awareness Practices

Awareness, View, and Conduct

At the heart of hope

New advanced course: The Awareness of Awareness

Observing the Mind

What is a Spiritual Path?

What reality?

Clarity, Compassion and Genuine Happiness

Defining your goals

Walking mindfully

The spark of creativity

How can I train my mind?

Conative intelligence and flourishing

Essential qualities in leadership

New loving-kindness practices

Meditation Practice Foundations

Thoughts of the day

Heart to heart

Finding the Moment

Knowing yourself to know the world

This summer: Emergences

This summer: Mind & Life Europe

This summer in Arles

Creative Journey with Maria João Pires

Meditate with Imagine Clarity in Arles

Music and meditation evenings in the Théâtre …

50 years in the Himalayas, exhibition of …

Discover the redesigned Imagine Clarity app

Everyday meditations

Mindfulness of Phenomena

Join the Newsletter

In our complex world, refining our view from within is vital. Join the Imagine Clarity newsletter to receive inspiration and advice on meditation, personal growth, and the cultivation of wisdom and deeper insight.