A Fire in Your HeartWhat is our greatest hope and aspiration if not a dream? Each moment of our daily lives, our dreams can slowly become reality.
Only faith, aspiration, awakening—only a big dream—can generate a collective energy powerful enough to bring our society to the shore of safety and hope. I know there is fire in your heart. Allow your dreams to carry you far and break free from the walls that limit you.
The Deepest Kind of DesireA deep desire, or aspiration, is necessary for us to live. The Buddha had a name for this kind of desire: volition. A person’s life is motivated by volition; it is the deepest kind of desire that we have in ourselves.
A Ball of EnergyVolition is the driving motivation behind our thinking, speech, and actions. It determines everything. Every one of us has a strong goal for our life. We want to achieve something. We feel a ball of energy in us, a tremendous, powerful source of energy. We want to feel truly alive.
Take a Closer LookOur volition can be nourishing, wholesome, and healthy, but there are kinds of volition which are unhealthy. Many whom we call terrorists have a strong desire to punish, kill, and get revenge, and that is also a kind of volition. That deep desire gives them a lot of energy, and they may even sacrifice their own lives for it. We need to examine our volition, our source of energy, to determine if it is wholesome or not.
The Power of Unwholesome VolitionTo illustrate the tragic power of our volition, the Buddha used the example of a young man who’s being dragged toward a pit of fire by two strong men. The man wants to live; he’s being dragged against his will. But the two men are stronger than he is, and they intend to throw him into the pit of fire. He doesn’t want to die, but he can’t resist. The Buddha asked, “Who are these two strong men who try to bring you to the realm of hell? They are your volition, your desire to run after what you believe to be happiness, namely the objects of your craving: craving for fame, craving for power, craving for sex, craving for wealth.
The Best Kind of DreamWe must look deeply into our volition to find out whether it is wholesome or unwholesome. If you find that your deepest desire is for fame, money, and sex, that desire can bring you a lot of suffering. If you are motivated by a desire to transform yourself and your community, to bring joy and hope into others’ life, to be a powerful instrument for social change, then you have the best kind of volition. Such volition gives you an infinite source of energy, and you become very alive, full of vitality in your daily life.
To Be HappyTo be happy, we need to take some time each day to sit down, look into ourselves, and identify the kind of energy that’s motivating us and where it is pushing us. Are we being pushed in the direction of suffering and despair? If so, we must release this intention and find a more wholesome source of energy. Our volition should be bodhicitta, the mind of love, the intention to love and serve.
Bodhicitta: The Great AspirationBodhicitta is a Sanskrit term that means “the mind of awakening.” It is sometimes called “the great aspiration.” Our mind of awakening, or mind of love, is the deep wish to cultivate understanding in ourselves in order to bring happiness to many beings. It is the motivating force for the practice of mindful living.
Copyright © 2025 by Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
