Your Goal Determines Your Ending

jiejing

Your Goal Determines Your Ending

Xuefeng

June 29, 2025

I have asked many people,
“What kind of life do you want to live?”

To my surprise, many had never considered this question.
They were adrift.
When one lacks a clear goal, confusion is inevitable.
The result? A lifetime passes by without clarity,
and one ends up muddling through life,
leaving behind nothing but a trail of trivial messes.

If life has no goal,
what’s the point of living?

A goalless life is no different in essence from the life of worms,
or of cattle, horses, sheep, and pigs.
Marriage, having children, and raising a family—
these differ little from how lions and wolves find mates, give birth, and raise their young.
The pursuit of wealth is no different from a gerbil desperately dragging grass roots into its nest.
Striving for official status and power is essentially the same as animals fighting for mating rights.

As you read this, ask yourself:
“What kind of life do I truly want to live?”

Once your goal becomes clear, life becomes light and simple.
Everything irrelevant to that goal can be discarded.
Whatever does not align with it, let it go.
Any path that diverges from it—stop walking.
People whose direction does not match yours—spare them your time.
As for things that run counter to your goal: don’t look, don’t listen, don’t speak, don’t ask—
and certainly don’t argue, debate, or contend.

Let pigs enter the pigsty,
and cattle return to their pen—
what could be more natural and effortless?

The greatest power of having a clear goal
is that it allows you to focus your precious time and energy.
You become highly sensitive and alert to anything related to your goal—
to the information, the energy, the opportunities you need.
You’ll find yourself naturally absorbing what is useful.

But without a goal,
you may find yourself interested in everything—or nothing.
You scroll your phone endlessly—scroll and scroll—
too busy to eat or sleep.
You’re always occupied, but at the end of the day,
what have you gained?
Nothing but wasted time.
And perhaps even worse—unemployment, or drifting toward a life of begging.

Before my child went to university, I advised:
“From the moment you enter college, begin planning to start your own business after graduation.
Don’t aim to work for someone else.
Only with this mindset can you learn real knowledge—
the kind that classrooms don’t teach.
Then, your four years at university will be worth it.”
And indeed, right after graduation, my child set out on an independent path.

See the difference?
Setting a goal from the start to become self-employed
versus waiting until after graduation to look for a job—
the outcomes are entirely different.

Those who aim to create will eventually find a path of freedom.
But those who only seek employment
will submit résumés, chase job offers,
and when the economy declines,
they will face the inevitable:
either joblessness or losing the job they found.

A life with a clear goal and a life without one
will never end the same.
Different goals shape different destinies.

Look across the multitudes of sentient beings,
and you will see this truth:
People who are easily angered, competitive, envious, jealous, resentful, anxious, fearful, depressed, disheartened, caught in comparison, or sunk in hopelessness—
they are, almost without exception, people without a clear life goal.

The very people whom even gods, Buddhas, Celestials, and saints cannot save are those whose life goals are vague or nonexistent.
I wish for every person in the world to have a clear goal in life.

Five thousand years of human history,
and the reality of our present age,
make one thing clear:
The most beneficial macro goal is to walk the Way of the Greatest Creator—
to follow the path of Chanyuan.

The most beneficial micro goal is to become a celestial,
and journey to Heaven—
to the Thousand-year World, the Ten-thousand-year World, the Celestial Islands Continent of the Elysium World.

There is no lighter, simpler, more beautiful, or more magnificent path.

Use your life to verify this truth.