Right Motivation
Discovering hidden motivations
Teacher Experience
A contemplative invitation for educators to reflect on before teaching.Taking time to really reflect, contemplate, and meditate is essential to gain insight into our own mental habits enough so we might glimpse our own—often mixed—motivations. Pausing to generate the intention to really benefit each student in whatever way they most need it and to avoid harming them in any way can be a powerful practice that guides us while we engage with them. What does it feel like when you catch yourself acting from irritation versus genuine care? Try starting one class this week by silently setting the intention: “May I truly benefit each student today.”
Student Experience
A contemplative invitation for students to connect with this learning goal.Reflect on a time when you did something good but later realized you had mixed motives. What deeper feelings or needs were driving your actions?
Understanding
Students will understand...Understanding the layered nature of motivation helps us recognize how cultural influences and personal insecurities can unconsciously drive our actions away from genuine care for others.
Action
Students are able to...Investigate the layered nature of personal motivation by uncovering hidden drives beneath surface intentions; evaluate how cultural influences, peer pressure, and personal insecurities affect your motivations; and implement systematic approaches for aligning your actions with wholesome intentions while recognizing the complexity of human motivation.
Content Knowledge
Students will know...Right motivation, the second step of the Noble Eightfold Path, involves cultivating intentions rooted in renunciation, loving-kindness, and compassion while abandoning motivations based on desire, ill-will, and harmfulness. This practice requires sophisticated self-examination because human motivation is often complex and layered, with surface intentions masking deeper psychological drives.
Buddhist psychology teaches that motivation is part of the aggregate of mental formations (sankhara), and it serves as the key factor determining the karmic effects of our actions. The same behavior can produce entirely different results depending on the underlying intention. This understanding requires investigating not just what we do, but why we do it, including unconscious motivations shaped by cultural conditioning, personal insecurities, and social pressures.
Developing right motivation is an ongoing practice that involves recognizing mixed motives, examining the ego’s subtle attempts to maintain control, and gradually aligning our actions with genuine care for others’ well-being. The Buddhist teacher Atisha taught that “all activities should be done with one intention” – the intention to benefit others – which serves as a practical guide for transforming ordinary actions into expressions of wisdom and compassion.
Guiding Questions
Implementation Possibilities
Facilitate motivation archaeology exercises where students dig beneath surface reasons to explore deeper psychological drives. Create anonymous sharing circles where students safely examine peer pressure influences on intentions. Design social media awareness activities revealing how platforms shape motivations. Practice group decision-making requiring examination of collective motivations before action. Implement mindfulness practices helping students pause and examine intentions before responding. Design service projects requiring examination of helping motivations and adjustment toward genuine care.
Assessment Ideas
Evaluate students’ ability to identify hidden motivations in personal examples during discussions. Assess the depth of self-reflection in journal entries about motivation complexity. Observe group work for evidence of considering others’ well-being over personal image. Review case study analyses for understanding of how cultural factors influence motivation. Check participation in motivation-checking exercises for honest self-examination and growth.
