Obstacles on the Spiritual Path

I have been thinking lately about the ways we get in our own way on the spiritual path. Not the obvious obstacles, such as doubt, laziness, or distraction, but the subtler ones. The ones that arrive disguised as progress. I hope that somewhere in what follows, something resonates with you.

What We Mean by Spirituality

I want to begin by acknowledging that spirituality means very different things to different people. For some, it still sits within a specific faith tradition. I am careful here not to use the word religion, not because I am avoiding it, but because the word carries so many connotations. In the Western sense, religion tends to imply institution, hierarchy, and obedience, and fewer and fewer people feel drawn to that framing. There is also a growing recognition that this Western concept does not translate well onto Asian traditions. Whether Buddhism is a religion, for instance, is a genuinely interesting question.

Buddhism is not monotheistic. We do not follow a Supreme Being above us. The Buddha was a historical figure: an extraordinary human being, but a human being nonetheless. What he did was discover the truth that was already there, and share it. His teachings spread from India through Central Asia, to China, Korea, and Japan, and across South and Southeast Asia. Across all these traditions and schools, the understanding of who the Buddha was remains essentially the same: someone who was special not because he was divine, but because he became awakened. And crucially, that potential for awakening lies in all of us.

So spirituality, in one sense, can be rooted in traditions like this, carrying thousands of years of wisdom, literature, and lineage.

But there is another, broader current of spirituality that is more general and more eclectic. Astrology, for instance, has parallel schools rooted in India, China, and the Western world, each with its own long history of observation and interpretation. Various forms of divination also carry real lineage: Daoist diagrams, palm and face reading, Tibetan Mo, tarot, many with histories spanning centuries. They are not comprehensive systems of teaching on spirituality, but they are often used as tools for understanding oneself, one's strengths and weaknesses, and one's destiny. They pave the way for spiritual growth, because you begin to reflect on the patterns and the order beyond what you can see with your eyes alone.

Then there is quite a different category: practices such as yoga, breathwork, meditation, sound healing, somatic work, and crystal healing. The list goes on. These belong largely to a wellness industry that took shape in the West over recent decades. They are mostly standalone offerings, often disconnected from the wisdom traditions and true lineages they were originally drawn from. And that disconnection comes with real limitations. Which brings me to the first obstacle.

The First Obstacle: Mistaking the Act for Wisdom

There is a very easy assumption to fall into: that because you are doing breathwork, sitting in meditation, or going to sound baths, you are therefore on a spiritual path. And maybe you are. But it is worth pausing to ask: are you receiving the teachings, or just the techniques? Most of these practices have been drawn out of ancient wisdom contexts and now stand alone as disciplines, separated from the understanding that originally gave them meaning.

You might feel calmer. You might manage stress a little better. These can be genuinely good things. But real spiritual growth happens at a different level. It happens in your deepening understanding of who you are, why you are here, and what your life is actually for. The form of a practice, without the wisdom behind it, can only take you so far.

Cheri Monastery, Thimphu, Bhutan

The Second Obstacle: Superstition

I want to be clear that I have genuine respect for astrology and divination. I use them myself from time to time, and I find them helpful, particularly when my mind is too busy and I need a way to step back and gain perspective. But there is a real danger here.

Reading a birth chart or a set of tarot cards is a skill, one that takes years to develop. Anyone can draw a card, or generate a birth chart using software these days, but the real work lies in interpretation. I have seen many readers start a business after studying for only a couple of years, or even a few months. When you are new to this space, you may take their word for it and begin to worry about things, especially if you turned to them at a vulnerable moment. And for those drawn to study these sophisticated disciplines themselves, another difficulty appears: our emotions and our intellect get in the way. We project. We see what we want to see, or what we fear most.

There is also another version of this: seeing everything as a sign. If you are a sensitive person and your mind is not settled, you can start to read meaning into everything around you, and instead of gaining clarity, you accumulate confusion. You become reactive rather than reflective. This is a very common place to get stuck, and I have been there myself.

The Third Obstacle: The Trap of the Intellect

This one might sound like the opposite of the previous two, and in a way it is. In Buddhism, there is a specific obstacle called the obstacle of knowing: the tendency to become so attached to what we have learned that we mistake the map for the territory. Some people accumulate terminology, texts, quotes, lineages, and names. They feel they are advancing. And intellectually, perhaps they are. But information alone does not transform into spiritual growth unless it is internalised, unless it becomes wisdom that lives in the body, in the heart, in the way you actually move through the world.

The same applies to spiritual experiences. Someone might have a profound moment during meditation, or feel something extraordinary in a church or monastery, and conclude: this is it, I have found the truth, this is the goal. But clinging to an experience, however genuine, can become its own obstacle. It fixes us at a certain point and stops us from going further.

This is one of the more subtle obstacles to talk about, because we are so deeply conditioned to believe that intelligence is by default a virtue. And it is, but only when it is held lightly, and only when it serves something deeper than itself.

The Fourth Obstacle: Chasing the Famous Teacher

This one appears in both religious and more general spiritual contexts. When we do not have a clear inner compass, we tend to use fame as a proxy for quality. We want to sit at the feet of the most renowned teacher, attend the most special retreats, and collect the most prestigious connections on our spiritual résumé.

Teachers are often celebrated for good reasons: real virtue, deep training, authentic wisdom. But the internet and the wellness industry have also produced a certain kind of guru who has built a following without having built the foundations. Some can be misleading. Some are simply running a business. And some have cultivated something closer to a cult dynamic, whether consciously or not.

Even within established traditions like Tibetan Buddhism, there are misunderstandings. People sometimes assume that because a teacher holds a recognised reincarnation title, they must be extraordinary in this life, too. But we are not born by default into who we were. Each life requires its own effort, its own cultivation. A title does not guarantee spiritual attainment in this lifetime.

Buddhism, it is worth noting, is deeply decentralised. There is no Buddhist equivalent of a Pope. You find a qualified teacher who embodies wisdom and compassion, who is well trained and genuinely kind, and who has the time and intention to actually teach you. That is already more than enough. You find a Sangha, a community, that nourishes you. And you grow from there. The people I have seen benefit most deeply from a teacher-student relationship are often those with a relatively unknown teacher, someone who keeps a low profile precisely because they are not interested in anything other than the teaching itself.

When we mix spiritual values with secular metrics such as fame, status, and access, we create obstacles for ourselves. Often quite serious ones.

The Fifth Obstacle: The Existential Disorientation That Comes with Genuine Practice

This one is perhaps the most difficult to articulate, and in some ways the most important, because it tends to arrive precisely when you are on the right path.

As practice deepens, we begin to see through things. The surface of ordinary life starts to feel thin. And this can trigger a genuine existential crisis: what is the point of any of this? Does life have meaning? Is it even worth engaging with the world?

Some monks and yogis withdraw entirely, living as hermits and meditating for years in caves. It is not easy for most of us to even understand, and it is certainly not possible for most of us. We live in a secular world. We have to make a living, maintain relationships, and show up.

What helps me here is the Buddhist distinction between conventional truth and ultimate truth. At the ultimate level, yes, phenomena are empty, liberation is the goal, and the constructs we build our lives around are provisional at best. But at the conventional level, what we experience is real. Our emotions are real. Our relationships are real. Our struggles are real. And they are not obstacles to the path; they are the fuel for it. They are what we work with to create change. The changes are gradual: a slow purifying, a shedding of skins, a restructuring of life from the inside out.

Here is an honest example from my own experience. I began my career in the art world, surrounded by gallery openings, auction previews, and VIP events. In my early twenties I loved it. The energy, the beauty, the people. It felt fun and natural.

As my practice deepened, I started to find most of these spaces meaningless. Not in a cynical way; more in a quiet, uncomfortable way. I found myself becoming less and less interested in those rooms, and yet I still went, because I did not yet understand what was shifting. Every time I did, I felt a low-grade inner restlessness, a discomfort I could not quite name. I questioned myself for a couple of years. Was I becoming antisocial? Had the pandemic changed me? Was something wrong with me?

Eventually I arrived at a quieter conclusion: those spaces simply were not nourishing me anymore. And rather than forcing myself back into a social life that no longer fit, I began to ask a different question. How do I build meaningful connections that are in alignment with where I am going, without cutting myself off from the world entirely? This is actually one of the reasons I started Buddhaland Podcast, and I will say it openly: there was a somewhat selfish motivation. I wanted to create the kind of conversation I actually value. It is also my way of honouring people whose lives and choices I admire, and of seeking out others who are asking similar questions.

I have also been more intentional about finding communities more broadly. I tried the crypto world for a time, drawn in by the idea that people there might genuinely care about creating change. I realised fairly quickly that most were primarily interested in making money, and honestly, I found that community even less nourishing than the art world. But I have also had real moments of luck. I occasionally attend dinners initiated by a group of retired lawyers in Hong Kong, who gather people who are intellectual and wise, kind and worldly. I have started exploring events at places like Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden, where nature and spirituality meet in ways that genuinely move me. These feel like small things. But they matter. They are how I am slowly rebuilding a social world that feels true.

Navigating the Path

So what does navigating all of this actually look like?

It is not an easy ride. Spiritual growth is not a fanciful thing, beautiful and chic and frictionless. Be prepared for effort, for detours, for hard questions about yourself. But through it all, you should feel, underneath the difficulty, a growing sense of clarity, of protection, of warmth. A conscious movement toward light, even when the path is not obvious.

Be curious and open. Use discernment. Find authentic guidance. Be honest with yourself about what is and is not nourishing you, and be decisive when something does not feel right. And be gentle, with others and with yourself.

Each of the obstacles I have written about here is really just the beginning of a much larger conversation. None of them have neat conclusions, least of all for me. But I hope that naming them is useful, because I think recognising an obstacle is already a form of progress.