the obstacle is the way
- “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” - Marcus Aurelius
11 linked references
June 8th, 2025
- intention and obstacle - the obstacle is the way
April 1st, 2024
- the yang to post-regret's yin — acceptance isn't the same as acceptance, the obstacle is the way, self-trust comes from respecting distrust
- In a world of karma and causality, "Changing the past" is the only thing worth striving for.
You are trapped, inexorably, on a rail-path that pulls you into the future that the past created.
You cannot make anything in the future 'better' without in some way changing the past.
The Trying-To-Be-Wise say, "You shouldn't try to change the past; you should try to accept it."
What do you think changing the past feels like, from the inside?
Once the past has truly changed, you don't *feel* it as changed; you feel it as has-always-been.
"Failure to accept the past" is merely the experience, from-the-inside, of what it means to need to change the past.
"Accepting the past" is merely the experience, from-the-inside, of having changed the past so that a better future can happen.
March 5th, 2023
my translations & interpretations of Buddhist stuff › some initial thoughts on how I would articulate the noble… › 4. path: How we get there 😛
- or in other words, the obstacle is the way
October 4th, 2022
- huh, the obstacle is the way relates to the Koln Concert
September 4th, 2021
- some resonance with this and the obstacle is the way
- > It can be really discouraging when progress seems state dependent (“if only I were in that other state!“), but taking correct actions, as best one can, in any state, is the thing that metabolizes, over a long time, whatever state one happens to be in (and part of that is fully accepting being in the state, if/eventually/when it’s safe to do so).
Like, the state IS the very stuff of practice, not a thing in the background that conditions practice.
August 1st, 2021
- related to the obstacle is the way
- > “Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
- (from Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke, and/or here)
thinking that rejects other thinking
- This is an obstacle, but the obstacle is the way.
- In some ways, the obstacle is the way is the opposite of thinking that rejects other thinking, in the sense that thinking that rejects other thinking
trust dance moves
- Well, since it's descriptive, almost everything everyone does can be understood as a move in the dance. How can all types of moves be seen as an opportunity for fueling upward spiral dynamics? (the obstacle is the way)
- Everything everyone does, the challenge is to somehow see it as part of building trust.
Sequence on NNTD
- the obstacle is the way as applied to resistance on fractal scales