Date: 05/17/2025 05/18/2025
Location: Star Lake Meditation Center
Teacher: Shilin Long
Dharma Knowledge
Obstacles in Spiritual Practice
On the path of spiritual practice, obstacles are not exceptions but the norm. Many practitioners begin with the expectation that practice should lead to increasing clarity, ease, and calm. When old habits return, emotions intensify, or progress seems to reverse, doubt arises: “Am I doing something wrong?” In truth, the appearance of obstacles often signals that practice has begun to touch deeper layers of the mind. Obstacles are not signs of failure, but indications of genuine engagement.
The primary source of obstacles lies within, not in external conditions. Busyness, complex relationships, and imperfect environments are usually triggers rather than causes. What turns them into obstacles is the mind’s habitual reaction—clinging to comfort, resisting discomfort, or demanding immediate improvement. Without recognizing this, practitioners may blame methods, circumstances, or others, while overlooking the underlying mental patterns.
One common obstacle is laxity and heedlessness. This does not always appear as complete abandonment of practice, but as mechanical routine without presence. Sitting in meditation while drifting, allowing emotions to run unchecked in daily life, yet reassuring oneself with the label “I am practicing.” This subtle dullness is especially draining because it halts progress without dramatic struggle. Often, the most significant obstacle is not intense disturbance, but unnoticed loss of awareness.
Another frequent obstacle is impatience and fixation on results. The desire for rapid breakthroughs and visible change creates pressure. When expectations are unmet, frustration, self-blame, or disillusionment follow. This obstacle arises not from lack of effort, but from misunderstanding the nature of the path. Practice is not linear advancement; it is a repeated process of seeing and reorienting.
At deeper levels, obstacles may take the form of subtle self-attachment. When practice brings insight, calm, or recognition, an identity quietly forms: “I am a practitioner,” “I have improved.” This attachment is less obvious than coarse emotions, yet more insidious. When this self-image is threatened, defensiveness, comparison, or resentment can arise, obscuring the original intention of practice.
Emotional resurgence is another obstacle often misinterpreted. Many assume that practice should reduce emotions, and when anger, sadness, or fear reappear, they conclude that practice has failed. In reality, practice does not eliminate emotions, but transforms the relationship to them. As awareness deepens, previously suppressed emotions surface more clearly. This is not regression, but an expansion of consciousness.
Attachment to teachings and concepts can also become an obstacle. Overreliance on frameworks and explanations may trap practice at the intellectual level, preventing genuine transformation. Teachings are meant to point, not to be clung to. When concepts replace direct experience, clarity stagnates. The obstacle is not learning too much, but hesitating to let go of ideas and return to lived reality.
The most skillful response to obstacles is not rejection, but understanding. Obstacles are not enemies; they are indicators. They reveal unseen attachments, fears, and misconceptions. When approached with mindfulness and honesty, obstacles become gateways rather than hindrances. Many decisive shifts in practice occur precisely within moments of difficulty.
Practice is not a journey that avoids obstacles, but one that learns how to meet them wisely. When practitioners stop trying to eliminate problems and instead learn to see them clearly, maturity emerges. Obstacles cease to be mere resistance and become conditions for cultivating insight and compassion.
For this reason, obstacles in practice do not undermine its value; they confirm that practice has reached meaningful depth. As long as awareness continues, direction is adjusted, and sincerity remains intact, obstacles will no longer be walls blocking the path, but steps leading toward deeper clarity and freedom.
