Unbending intention vs. iron will
Mar 26th, 2008 by spaceagesage
One of the greatest transitions of my life is to understand and act with unbending intention instead of iron will. The first one has the qualities of flexibility, of natural force working with me, and of personal responsibility; the latter speaks of inflexibility, of reacting against outside forces, and of using the sweat of the brow, or guile and manipulation, to win over a situation.
Unbending intention is like water, moving around, over, and even under an obstacle and continuing on its way. Iron will is like the construction worker who uses dynamite to blast a path clear of obstacles. The unbending intention works with its environment or situation, but iron will works against it.
I think the crux of the difference is in motivation. If I use unbending intention, I do not see myself at odds with the world. I try to respond (take an action I initiated), rather than react (take an action based on the actions of another). Unbending intention is about visualizing the goal with such certainty and conviction that no doubt can exist. Water flows and overcomes; it never doubts or hesitates. It knows its nature and can be nothing else.
Iron will, on the other hand, involves seeing the obstacles first and the goal somewhere beyond. Having summed up the obstacles as points of conflict, iron will comes from a place of insecurity and doubt, so it must react with hard, direct application of willpower. Without the ability to flow, it trudges.
If they had slogans, unbending intention’s would be, “My goal and I are one,” and iron will’s would be, “I must overcome.” One is about inevitability, the other about struggle.
I find that both taoism and buddhism as philosophies have trouble accounting for human desire (intention, purpose, goals or whatever one looks to beyond the immediate). This difficulty partly lies with the conceptual creation of Time:
http://99ppp.wordpress.com/tag/time-management/
As I lean more towards taoism as it allows that space for intuition/instinct to guide one through its quirky paradoxes. The Tao Te Ching has a great sense of humour about it. 🙂
I hope to elaborate this further on my blog, but at the moment, I’m practicing Wu-wei! 😉
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei
The Sage is occupied with the unspoken
and acts without effort.
Teaching without verbosity,
producing without possessing,
creating without regard to result,
claiming nothing,
the Sage has nothing to lose.
99ppp — with the Bible as my foundation of knowledge, I enjoy the Tao as a refreshing way to view the different aspects of The Nature of Things, using it to better my understanding of how the Holy Spirit works. “Dying to self” and “putting off the old self,” are concepts from the Bible that often seem a lot like following the Tao. Much of my Bible education has been through the mind of Westerners, and I appreciate Lao-tsu’s Eastern version of The Nature of Things.