OBSTACLES
Practicing Dzogchen means being in the unlimited perspective, in spontaneous meditation; then whatever you do will be spontaneous, effortless, flexible behavior.
Let's talk about the obstacles of perspective and those that arise during meditation and behavior.
Obstacles of Perspective
The obstacles related to perspective are basically two: a narrow (limited) point of view and words and concepts.
Before meditating, we need to have a perspective, an understanding: you listen, you think, you reflect, you practice, you experience, and you let go of your experiences. When you listen, make sure you listen correctly and try to put into practice what you have heard; you can hear many things, but during practice, focus your attention.
Regarding words, there is almost always a concept attached to the word; for example: the word "love" can define many things, and you can talk a lot about it; all of that—thoughts, words, reflections—has little to do with the experience of love. The same happens with perspective: we have a word and a concept and an idea of what perspective is. We can say that perspective has no limits: this is a concept. Basically, we can say that a concept is knowledge, it is understanding; but beyond that, it is an obstacle, and this can be one of the points where many people get stuck.
When you have the experience of phenomena, you know that some produce happiness, others produce sadness; when asked what the world is, try to understand from what perspective you are seeing it; that is what the teachings are about. But often, when we talk about this, it becomes an abstract or conceptual discussion. We can arrive at philosophical images and words that define the experience very well. But anyway, what is the point of arriving at a definition with words? It doesn't make much sense. Thus, the obstacle of perspective is words: that is, when one can define something very clearly but does not have the experience of it. In that case, defining perspective makes no sense. For example, it can happen that a person has a very clear idea of how they want to arrange their garden and what flowers they want to plant in it and how it will look; but when we look at their garden, we see that it is all arid. This means that the word and the idea did not lead to the experience. This is the obstacle of perspective.
Talking and thinking are within the context of the limited perspective. When we talk about something, there is an obstacle; when we think about it, it is an obstacle. Even what I have written here can create more obstacles. Obviously, this does not mean that we should not impart teachings using words; we need to use them. The Dharma always has to do with the individual's needs, which is why we talk about 84,000 different Dharmas, nine paths, four vehicles, five wisdoms, etc. These are different things. Why are there so many different things? Because people want different things; not everyone agrees on one single thing, because people have different perspectives: they think about things differently, they have different points of view. They need to see what they need to see. That is their perspective. This perspective is limited, and words and concepts are limited, and this is an obstacle, especially in Dzogchen.
Obstacles Arising During Meditation
There are three types of obstacles that commonly arise during meditation, and it is important to recognize what they are:
The first is the state of drowsiness, which corresponds to the obscuration of the essence. When we talk about that state of drowsiness, we think of ignorance, doubt, being sleepy, lack of clarity; all these things are related and belong to the same family. Some people, when they lack clarity, feel sleepy and actually fall asleep, and there is a specific meditation to work with this type of obstacle. That same obstacle also manifests in their lives: some people are fine when they are not doing anything outside of routine; but when they have to make a decision, change something, or start something, they enter a dimension of doubt, where nothing is clear to them. It is the same type of obstacle: one is its manifestation in life, and the other, in meditation. These aspects of the obstacle have the same root and obscure the basis, obscure the essence.
The second obstacle has to do with the obscuration of clarity; this is what prevents us from entering more deeply into meditation: we have many ideas in our minds, and at that moment, we are very creative; at that moment of meditation, all sorts of ideas and projects arise astonishingly, distracting us. This is, basically, the second obstacle in meditation. And the same problem manifests in life. There are many people who have many ideas because they see pieces of information everywhere; they lack the energy to manifest them, but intellectually they perceive them. You can see how in their minds these people are earning millions and millions of dollars and calculating in their minds: "How much am I earning? I'm going to double it," and they always double, triple in their calculations, and they will always be multiplying, but it's not true that they will achieve it. They have many ideas, but they can hardly carry out any of them because they lack the earth element. To achieve something, they must focus on accomplishment and not on calculating; they must have more consistency, have developed the earth element along with clarity.
When, due to a lack of earth, there is insufficient clarity, the problem I have described arises. For example: there are people who, when they try to achieve something in daily life—a business, a relationship, or a project—and are not achieving it and are not changing anything, they begin to become familiar with this situation that leads nowhere; they not only become familiar with the situation, but they make friends with it and unconsciously even love it, and therefore they are not moving. Having clarity would be important for these people. I am giving concrete examples from life, as it is in life that we have the most experiences.
When we try to meditate, these obstacles can arise; sometimes our mind is not clear: we have woken up very early and are ready for our project, but the moment we see the project we have to carry out, everything becomes confusing, we lose clarity. This can also happen in meditation. We can have wonderful weather, very good friends, a beautiful altar, and the perfect teacher, but have no idea what we are doing. This normally happens to people when they attend teachings for the first time.
It is necessary to be clear about what one is supposed to be doing, that is, the objective must be clear.
The third obstacle is related to union. Basically, it arises from the lack of balance between the experiences of clarity and emptiness. One meaning of emptiness— that is, of a good connection with emptiness—is feeling stable and firm, and one meaning of clarity is growing creatively in life. It is not very easy to achieve a balance between creativity and stability. If we are very creative, we often do not have enough space or time for introspection. Great artists and musicians have many doubts; sometimes success is overwhelming, and they lack the space where they can stabilize themselves, and this kills their bodies; on a smaller scale, there are people so active that they have no time for themselves: they have too much external work, too much extroversion. On the other hand, there are very passive people who lack creativity: they have a very flat, very simple, very insipid, lukewarm experience of life.
These are the obstacles of meditation in the three aspects: that of emptiness, that of clarity, and that of the union of both.
Obstacles Arising in Behavior
The obstacle that manifests in behavior is deceiving oneself into believing that one has achieved perspective and meditation, yet having erroneous conduct. It is getting trapped in the delusion: "I have the perspective and the meditation, and now I can do whatever I want." Of course, no one can tell you if you are wrong or not, but if you know yourself well, then you can recognize this behavioral obstacle when it arises. The only way to avoid it is to change your behavior to correct behavior. For example: being impulsive is not the same as being flexible; it is rather acting according to some momentary need or desire and believing it to be flexible behavior.
Sometimes you may hear people say that someone seems limited, that they don't seem like a Dzogchen practitioner because they do this or don't do that. People have certain ideas about how a Dzogchen practitioner should act. But practicing Dzogchen does not mean you have to do or not do certain things. It is about being in the unlimited perspective, in spontaneous meditation, then whatever you do will be spontaneous, effortless, flexible behavior.
This obstacle is an example of how the intellect creates problems for one's own existence: it covers experience with an intellectual mask. This is an obstacle, and something we tend to do frequently in life. Our mind has more masks than our speech, our speech has more masks than our body's actions. If we said everything we thought, it would be a disaster, and if we did everything we said, it would also be a disaster. It is good that there are some limits between the mind and speech, between speech and the body. Even with those limits, we already have enough problems!
So, we have: vision, meditation, and behavior, and we have obstacles to perspective, meditation, and behavior. If you can reach a conclusion with this, if you can understand and integrate it into your experience, then you will have something of Dzogchen.