A Life Driven By External Goals Is A Battlefield

**Note: Truth does not always sound pleasant. If the mind is not really peaceful now, it might not be a perfect moment to listen to this podcast, one has to be aware of the emotions or reactions that can block one from listenING ATTENTIVELY and with HUMILITY. This talk is a meditation practice. What one needs to do is listen attentively, without getting stuck in words, examine the mind in silence, do not agree or disagree, just look at the mind as it is. Doing so is already a meditation practice.

Transcript

We are always doing something,

Driven by a goal,

By a target,

So we can achieve,

We can reach,

We can finish.

We rarely have an affection to do something,

Having affection for others,

So we do it spontaneously.

Nowadays,

Look around,

Most people's behavior are driven by the target,

By many kinds of external goals,

Purpose.

And people are confused,

What's the purpose of life?

You see,

This kind of a mental habit of wanting a purpose,

Wanting some meaning,

It's the same of the behaviors that are driven by the external goal,

Target.

We are all living in this way,

And we feel normal to live in this way,

Because we are all conditioned on this,

So we are no longer sensitive to it.

Driven by a goal,

By a target,

It is easier to measure what we can do,

What we have done.

And that measurement brings about the achievement,

A sense of achievement,

A sense of self-importance,

So we are becoming more and more individual.

We only care about our own purpose,

Our own target,

And we make effort to it,

And we suffer together.

Actually,

We are rarely together,

Except that we suffer together.

And then,

We feel normal to suffer,

And such life is an incessant battlefield.