The Obstacle is the Path

Say Zen
4 min readSep 23, 2023

There’s a Zen saying I really love: The obstacle in the path. In other words, whatever you think is standing in the way of you realizing your goal is actually part of the process of you attaining that goal. There is no path to realization without obstacles; the obstacles are themselves the path.

Photo by Yann Allegre on Unsplash

It makes sense in the context of Buddhism, whose First Noble Truth states that life is suffering. Suffering isn’t an accident…

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