What is the ultimate goal in Buddhism and how is it attained?

Answer 1

Believe it or not there is more than one answer to this questions. Some schools of Buddhism maintain the goal is the attainment of relative and absolute happiness, which can be known as enlightenment. Some Buddhist however persue Buddhahood itself, whilst the Boddhisatva seeks to create the conditions by which suffering for all beings can be ended.

Answer 2

First of all, it must be noted that Buddhism is not, strictly speaking, a 'religion' - what differentiates Buddhism from other 'religions' is that Buddhism places no emphasis on blind faith and acceptance, but encourages ruthless investigation on behalf of the aspirant seeker into the nature of reality for oneself - the Buddha himself was recorded to have encouraged his disciples not to blindly accept his teachings as truth, but to put them to test through trial and tribulation and decide for themselves whether they were ultimately applicable and worthy of acceptance or not - and ofcourse, the reason that Buddhism exists almost 2,500 years after its inception is the undeniability of its underlying teachings.

Also, there is no omniscient deity such as 'God' in Buddhism - merely the individual quest for ultimate enlightenment. The Buddha himself was not a god and never claimed to be divine, he was merely a wise man and a masterful teacher who taught a path to enlightenment based on what he learnt and realised through his own personal experience. Buddhists do not worship the Buddha, they merely pay reverence to the historical figure as a great teacher, and pay homage to his image as an archetypal representation of the perfect living embodiment of the Buddhist path. Buddhism is not a religion, but a practical system of philosophy and morality aimed at achieving ultimate enlightenment.

That being said, the final goal to which the ernest practitioner of Buddhism aspires is the realisation of 'Nibbana,' or, loosely translated, a state of 'unbinding'. This is a state of perfect peace and enlightenment reached through penetration into the true, or ultimate, nature of reality, which has the mind as its abode - 'mind' being the inner sanctum of all that is and all that is not.

Since mind is the precursor of all perception (here, perception relates to all that we percieve, both 'externally' and 'internally'), it follows to reason that all we percieve has mind as its root cause and condition, and so do all modes of perception, including ignorance. Following from this observation, we may conclude that since 'mind' is the precursor and root of all perception and all modes of perception, it is only through directly penetrating and realising the true nature of the mind, through direct personal experience, that one may reach true, pure understanding and hence, liberation from 'samsara', which is the causal realm of 'suffering,' (birth, life, old-age, death, rebirth) a state of perpetual becoming conditioned by ignorance, which is the antithesis of enlightenment, which is unbecoming - this, ofcourse, is a rather crude and abstract attempt at a philosophical inclined description of a state which by its very nature transcends the descriptive capability of linguistics, which is the very reason that great emphasis is placed upon direct, personal experience within Buddhism.

This is a lofty aim and may take many years, or even lifetimes (if one is open to the possibility of reincarnation) to achieve - but once achieved, one transcends the entire causal sphere of dependent origination and resides within a state of perfectly peaceful unabiding, having achieved pure and true understanding through thorough investigation of Dhamma (perennial truth), and ultimately liberation from suffering and causal existence. One who has reached this state is known as an Arahat, a perfectly enlightened one - this is the realisation and actualisation of ones inherent Buddhahood.

"One who realizes here the end of his own suffering,

Who's laid down the burden, unfettered,

Him I call a Brahmin.

One in whom no longings are found,

Who, through knowledge, has no doubts,

Plunged into the deathless, not arising again,

Him I call a Brahmin.

One who is stainless and pure as the moon,

Peaceful and untroubled,

With indulgence and existence exhausted,

Him I call a Brahmin.

One who has given up human attachment

And gone beyond divine attachment,

Unfettered from all attachment,

Him I call a Brahmin.

One who has given up both pleasure and displeasure,

Who's cooled, with no remnant of craving,

A hero who's overcome the whole world,

Him I call a Brahmin.

One who here has gone beyond both good and evil,

Both kinds of clinging,

Sorrowless, stainless, pure,

Him I call a Brahmin.

The bull, the finest, the hero,

The great sage, the conquerer,

Desireless, bathed, awakened,

Him, I call a Brahmin.

One who has gone beyond this winding path,

so hard to travel - Samsãra, delusion -

Crossed over, passed beyond, a meditator,

Clear, free from doubt,

Who has attained Nibbana without clinging,

Him I call a Brahmin

One whose destination neither gods nor spirits nor human beings know,

With defilements exhausted, an Arahat,

Him I call a Brahmin.

One who knows former abodes,

Sees heavens and hells,

who has reached the end of births,

Sage perfect in knowledge,

Who has perfected all perfections,

Him I call a Brahmin" - Gautama Buddha.

Answer 3

Nirvana. Everything you perceive as "outside" of yourself, is a reflection for you to understand yourself and to realize your true nature, total integration and Oneness with All That Is.