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Originally Posted by markings
The Buddha was dissatisfied with the outcome he got through the teachers he visited and worked with.
He resolved that there must be a better way and set out to discover it.
How is that not having a goal?
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A goal can be something you know and seek. (Known conceptually as an idea.) Or a goal can be about changing now through self awareness.
So see one is based on the actual, observing or seeing what I am now, and one is based on a concept, seeking something I know as an idea.
There a big difference between a goal of knowing yourself, and one of seeking a concept of something you know, like enlightenment or whatever. Some idea separate from you.
One type of goal will never result in a fundamental change in what a person is, though they may superficially act and feel different, and the other has the potential to change what the person fundamentally is, as a thought centered consciousness. What they are as far as what reacts, what is referred to and experienced as reality and self etc. What they are as experience and experiencer. From what base or ground does action/reaction spring in them.
Buddha did not have an external conceptual goal. He did not think, ok these religious paths are not making me happy all the time so I will sit under this Bodhi tree until I am happy. He was aware he was still mentally suffering and so realized the religious paths were not helping him to be free of suffering. He was determined to find the root of the problem, and he eventually realized the source of the suffering was himself. It was something he had to realize or see in the actual, in himself, no outside concept would have solved the problem. The answer or solution was never outside him or his "doing." No practice, no teaching, no teacher, no religion, could stop the self caused suffering because he was the cause or "doer", nothing external. He was the only solution as he was the only cause. Once he realized himself as the primary cause, that seeing opened up a new way to be and thus a new experience of whatever was or is. Nothing he could do, (external goal) could have changed his perception of himself. He has to see or become aware of something he was not seeing or was not aware of. His enlightenment was not a result of anything he was doing, it was a result of him realizing or seeing in the actual what he was doing, it was a result of a change in what he was aware of.
Buddha did not have an external goal. External goals are conceptual. Buddha's goal was to know himself, it was based on the actual, not on an idea. One funny thing about external goals is how they are approached. Like say somebody has an external goal of reaching enlightenment. How many hours do you think the average person seeking enlightenment spends thinking about it in a given day or week? Maybe they go to a message board and post about it for a few hours, then they go to a party and forget about it. They go to the movies, later they go to work and think about other things. They spend time thinking about what new color to paint their walls. They argue with somebody about something. They get annoyed about what somebody says to them. That's the usual importance of external goals.
Buddha's goal was internal or actual and not external or conceptual. He never stopped being aware of what he was moment to moment. He never stopped being aware of the goal which was based on the actual and not an idea. Knowing who and what he was. In fact, it has to be constant eventually as it is a change in ones self awareness. You can't reach higher states of awareness then go back to being ignorant of what you know. You may forgetfully fall back into old habits and ways of being, but you will always have the knowledge based on real experience of what you are and so those insights guide you back in their good time to the realizations. What you are is applied 100% in everything you do. If ones goal is internal and experience based, it never stops. If one's goal is to become something, so is external and thought based, one can do it when they feel like it. It's just something they think about so it comes and goes as an idea. Now I am meditating, now I am gossiping on Facebook. Is the goal about what I am or about what I want to become? One is internal and one is external. One comes out of what I am and one comes out of what I think.
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