Beginner’s Mind is a special project collecting insightful essays written by US college students who have attended experiential-learning courses related to Buddhism. Some of the authors identify as Buddhists, for others it is their first encounter with the Buddhadharma. All are sharing reflections and impressions on what they’ve learned, how it has impacted their lives, and how they might continue to engage with the teaching.

Krishna Kuruvadi wrote this essay for his Buddhish Economics course at the University of Southern California. Krishna is a freshman majoring in Human Biology at USC, with an emphasis in the pre-med track. After graduation, he plans to attend medical school and pursue a career in compassionate, patient-centered healthcare.

Conditions of Intention: Buddhist Agency in an Age of AI and Insecurity

In a world shaped by artificial intelligence, economic instability, and widespread burnout, people are often told that success or failure depends primarily on personal effort. If someone struggles financially, the common assumption is that they didn’t work hard enough or make the right choices. It is important to note that technologies increasingly shape attention, desire, and decision-making. These conditions raise urgent questions about responsibility and agency.

Buddhist processual philosophy offers a strong alternative to the modern-day image of the autonomous individual. Rather than understanding intention (Pali: cetanā) as originating from a self-contained subject, early Buddhist thought presents intention as emerging through conditions. Seeing intention as shaped by conditions challenges the idea that people act as fully independent and self-built decision-makers. It instead supports creating social systems that gently shape better conditions, reducing insecurity by strengthening the networks of people and environments on which we depend.

Early Buddhist texts describe ethical development not as pure willpower, but as something shaped by conditions. In the Cetanākaraṇīyasutta (AN 11.2), the Buddha explains: “For a virtuous person, one whose behavior is virtuous, no volition need be exerted: ‘Let non-regret arise in me.’ It is natural that non-regret arises in a virtuous person, one whose behavior is virtuous.” 

This claim suggests that wholesome mental states do not come mainly from inner self-command. They instead come when supporting conditions are in place. In this framework, intention is not a separate act made by a completely independent self. It is part of an ongoing process shaped by causes and conditions. What really matters is creating the right conditions so that good intentions are more likely to arise.

The same sutta also emphasizes having continuity and interdependence: “Thus, bhikkhus, one stage flows into the next stage, one stage fills up the next stage, for going from the near shore to the far shore.” Liberation is displayed as a process that unfolds while earlier conditions influence what we are able to do later. Ethical accountability stays, but our ability to act is always shaped by conditions. This processual model complicates the modern assumptions that treat economic success or failure as only individual accomplishments.

This view becomes especially relevant in contemporary economies which are surrounded by instability and insecurity. Neoliberal frameworks often treat individuals as independent decision-makers whose outcomes reflect personal merit or failure. Poverty, debt, or burnout are displayed as failures of effort or discipline. But if intention itself is shaped by conditions, then responsibility cannot be tied to only the individual. 

Education systems, labor markets, healthcare access, social expectations, and digital infrastructures all play a role in shaping how intention forms. The capacity of a person to plan, persist, or make “good choices” does not emerge on its own. It is cultivated by a supportive environment or is limited by a harmful one. A processual approach therefore redirects the attention from blaming individuals to transforming the larger systems that shape their lives.

Later Buddhist philosophy reinforces this relational view of reality. Madhyamaka thinkers deny that anything possesses an intrinsic nature (Skt. svabhāva) that could serve as a final foundation. As the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy states, “there is no exception to this rule; phenomena are dependently originated all the way down, and it is therefore impossible to specify precisely what it is upon which anything finally depends. Hence, there can be no set of ‘ultimately existent’ things.” Applied to intention, this means cetanā doesn’t come from a completely independent self. It comes from networks of conditions that are relational and open-ended.

Rejecting inherent nature does not eliminate agency as it instead reframes agency as something that emerges through interdependence.

The Kālāma Sutta (AN 3.65) strengthens this non-coercive model of shared life by encouraging a relational understanding of knowledge and authority. The Buddha advises: “Please, Kālāmas, don’t go by oral transmission, don’t go by lineage, don’t go by canonical authority. . . . But when you know for yourselves: ‘These things are unskillful, blameworthy, criticized by sensible people, and when you undertake them, they lead to harm and suffering,’ then you should give them up.” 

This teaching shows a model for intellectual humility in situations that may be uncertain. Instead of relying on fixed authorities for certainty, people are encouraged to figure things out together by seeing the consequences of actions.

These insights highlight what a “good-enough beehive” could look like. Beehives are sustained not because of certain heroic individuals, but because there are organized patterns of cooperation that allow bees to work together despite their limits. Unlike bees, humans require diversity, creativity, and ethical reflection. A Buddhist processual economy would therefore focus on designing supportive conditions that cause wholesome intentions to come up across networks. This includes material stability, equitable access to resources, and technological systems that align with a collective well-being rather than exploitation.

Artificial intelligence makes distributed agency visible. When recommendation algorithms shape desire or automated systems affect opportunity, intention can no longer be understood as purely internal. Humans and nonhumans participate together in shaping action. From a Buddhist perspective, this does not mean machines possess karmic agency, but that human intention has always been shaped by relationships and circumstances. AI makes this interdependence more visible. The goal is not to defend an isolated self, but to cultivate wise forms of cooperation within the complex networks we inhabit.

Understanding cetanā in processual terms therefore reframes freedom. Freedom is the capacity to participate skillfully in shaping conditions. Building a good-enough beehive means creating social and economic systems that reduce insecurity while supporting wholesome intentions.

Responsibility still matters, but it is not solely individual. It is shared collectively across the systems and relationships that shape how people act. In an age of burnout and strong digital influence, Buddhist processual philosophy offers a way to imagine economies grounded in interdependence and care instead of blaming individuals for systemic problems.

Reflection on AI use

I can claim full credit for this essay because I developed the main argument, selected the sources, checked all quotations, and decided how the final version should be written. AI helped me clarify difficult ideas and refine the structure, and I chose what I should add in terms of my own wording. AI also helped me add the grammatical and accent marks for the romanization of the Buddhist Pali terms. I made sure everything matched the assignment guidelines. I was responsible for making sure the sources were accurate and allowed under the instructions.

The process of writing with AI also connects to the Buddhist ideas discussed in the essay. In Buddhism, there is no fixed, independent self (Pali: anattā). Things instead arise through conditions and relationships. Writing this essay took place in a similar way. The final paper did not come from an isolated “self,” but from interaction between my own thinking, class discussions, the Buddhist texts, and AI responses. The work emerged through the conditions.

At the same time, this doesn’t mean that responsibility isn’t present. Even though intention comes through conditions, it still has ethical importance. In the same way, even though this essay was shaped through interaction with AI, I am responsible for the ideas, accuracy, and final way that the content is presented. This experience helped me see freedom not as complete independence, but as the ability to work with skill in certain conditions. That insight connects directly to the broader argument of the essay of how building better systems means shaping conditions that allow good intentions to arise.

References

Bodhi, Bhikkhu, translator. Aṅguttara Nikāya 10.2: Cetanākaraṇīyasutta (Volition). Sutta Central, https://suttacentral.net/an10.2/en/bodhi. Accessed 27 February 2026.

Sujato, Bhikkhu, translator. Aṅguttara Nikāya 3.65: With the Kālāmas of Kesamutta. Sutta Central, https://suttacentral.net/an3.65/en/sujato. Accessed 27 February 2026.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “Madhyamaka Buddhist Philosophy.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://iep.utm.edu/madhyamaka-buddhist-philosophy/. Accessed 27 February 2026.

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