Intentions are future-oriented entities. They are formed by judgments we make about how we want our future to be. When we act primarily on our intentions, we also become future-oriented. Our every moment is then consumed by thoughts and feelings about how our future will be and how it might differ from the ideal constructed by our intentions. This happens because we easily become attached to our intentions.

When we are attached, we identify with our desires, aversions, and beliefs, and when we identify, it feels necessary to seek out the things we desire, to avoid the things we hate and fear, and to confirm our beliefs. To act instead from compassion does not require us to change our intentions, but only to allow ourselves adequate distance from them. Our intentions can then exist freely as the future-oriented entities they are, while we ourselves exist wholly in the present, sensitive and responsive to what is most needed and necessary right now.