Daily Connect: Setting Your New Year's Intention

At New Year's celebrations throughout the world, people recognize and say goodbye to the past, and welcome the renewal and promise of a new year.  Each new year holds the possibility of a fresh beginning for everyone, and reminds us that we are not a fixed, permanent, solid, "me", but instead, a being in continuous change, flux, and transformation.    Though many of us make resolutions or personal goals of self-improvement,  it is perhaps better to consider setting an intention.   The Sanskrit word , "samkalpa", means intention with volition, and suggests a much deeper and more profound desire than simply meeting a goal.   Phillip Mofitt, the Insight Meditation teacher, explains the Buddhist way of setting an intention: