No Goals: The Goal

One of the central characteristics found in my family is the persistent need to act and produce. My mom is the perfect person to observe this characteristic: she is everlastingly anxious about what needs to be done and unable to sit still, even for a moment. She has often blown off therapy, meditation, or yoga as being nonsensical wastes of time, something that is taking away from a day that would otherwise be useful. Moreover, she is the first to consistently pester people with questions of care: are you comfortable? What do you want on TV? Do you want tea? A fruit plate? In her mind, there always needs to be stimulated, always needs to be something consumed or felt as a sensory input. 

In my practice, I reflect on this rather frequently. First of all, I have this impulse. I am the product of my parents and the environment around me, so how could I not have this impulse. Moreover, is this impulse something to be dissolved, channeled, or admired? After all, this impulse is the same impulse that causes me to write on this website, caused me to excel during periods of academic study, and caused me to consistently improve my home, marriage, and parenting.

So let's explore it from the perspective of Buddha's noble truths. Suffering is inseparable from life (Duḥkha), and this indeed is suffering. Often I am anxious about what is needed to be done, so I am incapable of simply enjoying a moment, appreciating the fullness of what is present. I am suffering. Next, suffering has a cause associated with attachment (Samudaya). So where does this suffering and need to act stem from? What is the attachment?

For me, this is the revelatory moment: it stems from my clinging to the future, it stems from the goals we create for ourselves. It stems from an illusory world we create that, frankly, doesn't exist in the future.

Let me explain.

What happens when a person makes a goal? What happens when someone works toward something? In that moment, they make observations. More specifically, they make observations about what is missing, absent, or lacking in the present moment. From there, they compare those observations, consciously or subconsciously, to their past. This comparison could reveal that their situation is materially better than before, or materially worse. Their comparison could be comparative to another's station or material situation, comparing the material wealth of another to their own.

From there, they will then begin to create projections into the future as to how they could possibly turn this current moment into a comparatively 'better' one. For instance, they might remember a get together or a party where they were happy, in the moment, or content with the social interactions. Then, they might think: There was tea and cake then. If I had tea or cake now, it would be comparably great. Or they might think: When I was uneducated, I was unhappy because everyone lectured me and I didn't know things. I will get more educated and I will be happier because I will know things. Or maybe: I have a good, working car now. But I have a friend with a faster car and he likes it, so I could get a cooler, faster, more unique car and and I would be happier than I am now. 

This would happen subconsciously or consciously, and the person would then begin to imagine a world ahead of them, setting goals as to how to take their current situation and amplify or 'improve' it. Once I get that car, I will be happier. Or once I get my education and that career, I will be less stressed. Or once I get my guests tea and cake, they will be happier and so will I. 

The problem with this kind of thinking is rather simple: it is devoid of the present moment. When we create goals and attempt to create futures in our imagination, we often project our attachments and insecurities into the present moment, diving into the world of illusion. Instead of pulling from the present moment, we are often pulling from our past, pulling from our illusions, and pulling from our attachments and imposing those poisons onto the present. That poison them seeps into the very essence of the present and tints the future. And when that future is not met, we are disappointed and unhappy. Why? Because we became attached to an illusion; we created a reality that was never really there from a past that never truly existed.

Literature teaches this to great affect in works like Macbeth. This is one of my personal favorite of Shakespeare's plays, mostly because Macbeth creates a reality of illusion while being ignorant and devoid of the reality of the present. He hears the prophecy of the weird sisters, for instance, and immediately concludes that the only way he can become king is to commit regicide. He is incapable of considering the innumerable possibilities that he might become king because he takes his past attachments, his inherent violence, his insecurity of his own power, his insecurity of his own masculinity, and he imbeds those things into his imaginings of the future. He is disconnected from the moment and he, as a result, creates a vision of the future poisoned by the attachments of his past and his own unacknowledged failings. For this reason, Macbeth's fatal flaw is not ambition, but a lack of imagination. If you still doubt, this conclusion, re-read the Dagger Soliloquy and pay special attention to the lines, "With Tarquin's ravishing strides." Macbeth knows that much like Tarquin, he is repeating a cycle of violence, tragedy, pain, and suffering; he knows he is tragic before he even commits the regicide.

The same kind of thought process occurs in Crime and Punishment, too, or Catcher in the Rye, or in my own life. Or in my mother's. And likely yours, too. When we think about the goals we set in the day, for the week, or our future, we create these illusory worlds that we cling to and romanticize and amplify our own attachments and failings; we impregnate the future with our own perceived failings: of course I need a nice sports car in the future because I am impregnating my future with my own attachment to social status, materialism, or social admiration; of course our guests need tea and cake, because I am impregnating the short future of this get together with the desire to be loved and admired by my friends and guests; of course I need to go to that prestigious college and get a good career because I am attached to the material gains or admiration or love from family members that is promised by those achievements. 

But Buddhism reminds us that this is a lie. Dōgen, in his 4th guiddeline for studying the way, states that we must proceed with a mind that "neither grasps nor rejects, the mind unconcerned with name or gain." We cannot practice the path or buddha-dharma with the "thought that it is to benefit others." Moreover, we must practice the buddhist path "solely for the sake of buddha-dharma. This is the way"; the path is the way, not the outcome (Moon in a Dewdrop 34-35). In other words, it is important to practice buddhism, the 6 paramitas, and practice in a way that does not create a false future with attached utility or purpose. Practice for the sake of enlightenment, for the sake of advancement, this is all vanity and the impregnation of the future with our own perceived difficiences of the present. After all, how can one achieve perfection and enlightenment if they are continually plagued by the poisons of their present vanity? How can one achieve enlightenment and perfection if they are unable to see the tenzo as an essential position for enlightenment, one as venerable as any other? After all, the buddha-dharma is found within all sentient beings.

Applied to my daily, western life, this helps provide direction: the path over the outcome. When we create goals toward the future, we are only leading ourselves to be disillusioned with the present. Instead, it is far more important to act in the present, with a mind woard acting with integrity, patience, and kindness. In the end, the end will figure itself out. To remind myself of this, I always consider how anything virtuous and just could be created from an unvirtuous and unjust process? How can someone grow and develop the muscles of their body if they do not cultivate a routine that will cultivate muscle growth?

In the end, the process is the point. In the end, the goal is to have no goals.

Written on July 26, 2025

Last Edited July 26, 2025