What is "right intention"?

Amber Larson, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly based on Against the Stream (MN 117, 19)

What is "right intention"? It is of three kinds.

"How is right view the forerunner [of the Ennobling Eightfold Path]? One discerns wrong intention as wrong intention, and right intention as right intention. What is wrong intention? It is being intent on sensuality, ill will, or harming. This is wrong intention..."

Right intention

"One abandons wrong intention to enter into right intention — this is right effort. One is mindful to abandon wrong intention to enter and remain in right intention — this is right mindfulness. Therefore, these three qualities — right view, right effort, and right mindfulness — run and circle around right intention." — MN 117

Two categories

A "being-intent-on-enlightenment"

The Blessed One said, "Meditators, before my great awakening, when I was still just an unenlightened Bodhisattva, this thought occurred to me:

"'Why not keep dividing my thinking into two kinds?' I made thinking associated with sensuality, thinking associated with ill will, and thinking associated with harming one kind.

"And I made thinking associated with letting go (renunciation, nonclinging, freedom), thinking associated with non-ill will, and thinking associated with nonharming another kind.

"As I remained heedful, ardent, and intent in this way, thinking associated with sensuality arose in me. I realized, 'Thinking associated with sensuality has arisen in me, and that leads to my affliction or the affliction of others or the affliction of both (of everyone). Sensuality obstructs wisdom, promotes vexation, and does not lead to nirvana.'

"As I noticed that sensuality leads to my affliction, it subsided. As I noticed that it leads to the affliction of others... to the affliction of both... it obstructs wisdom, promotes vexation, and does not lead to nirvana, it subsided. Whenever thinking associated with sensuality had arisen, I simply abandoned it, broke it down, dispelled it, and wiped it out of existence.

"As I remained heedful, ardent, and intent, thinking associated with ill will arose in me. I knew, 'Thinking associated with ill will has arisen in me, and that leads to my affliction or the affliction of others or the affliction of both. It obstructs wisdom, promotes vexation, and does not lead to nirvana.'

"As I noticed that ill will leads to my affliction, it subsided. As I noticed that it leads to the affliction of others... to the affliction of both...

"It obstructs wisdom, promotes vexation, and does not lead to nirvana, it subsided. Whenever thinking imbued with ill will had arisen, I simply abandoned it, broke it down, dispelled it, wiped it out of existence."  — MN 19 More