From Intent to Action

Yi (Intent) is the base of every creation. Intent (Yi) leads the energy (qi) and once they are in line the flow of wu wei (no action) is achieved.

I unintentionally scratch where it itches, I lift spoon when I am hungry, I pick up a glass when I am thirsty. So does that mean that these actions happen without intention? These simple (seemingly unintentional) actions carry so much in them and just for the fun of it you can break them into long actions – the result is the same but learning is immense.

Today’s experiment:

Choose a simple action you would like to perform: like lifting your arm, scratching your nose or picking up a pen from the table. As you decide on the action, leave it for the end of the experiment and do a relaxation exercise first.

Sit with your feet flat on the floor and focus on each part of your body starting from head, eyes, nose, ears, relax each muscle on your face and around your eyes. Focus on your breath – in and out - and allow your thoughts to come and go without giving them any importance at all.
Relax your neck, shoulders, arms, torso, become aware of your stomach muscles and observe how it raises and falls with each breath.
As you continue scanning your body focus on your spine, relax each vertebrae one by one.

As you relax more and more, move intent to your legs, thighs, knees, calves and toes. Press your toes one by one gently against the floor - from small to the big toe, one foot at the time.

Once you are relaxed bring back your initial intent from the beginning of the experiment: let’s say picking up a pen. Observe the process that you need to go through in order to achieve such a simple outcome: first you have to have an intent, after that you need to will your hand to move and because it is relaxed you will be aware of each muscle moving by one. Imagine signals traveling from your brain to your muscles and how many steps it takes for you to move your arm an inch, two, further away, above the pen… each finger moves with different set of decisions guided by the initial goal to pick up the pen. How many fingers do you use? Will you use your left or right hand? Which hand do you use usually?

Everything that happens follows the same pattern: From Intent to Action. There are also lost intentions, the ones not followed by action. Those are lost ideas and thoughts that created energy waste trapped in the body. Roaming and swirling imprisoned in body cells this energy waste eventually projects itself in form of various injuries, pain or disease. If I could vote on this matter I’d say that no intent is better than lost intent, so if there is anything you planned to do for a long time – break it into small steps and celebrate the accomplishment: by actually doing what you intended to do your mind and body free of the wasted energy and you get to enjoy fruits of your own creation.

After all isn’t that the reason why we are here?