For a practitioner, if obstructions are not cut off, he is closed off and muddled; if hindrances are not removed, he is foolish and benighted. The substance of the mind is originally like the sun in the sky, while deluded feelings are like floating clouds. When clouds cover the blue sky, how can the bright sun shine clearly? When feelings delude the spiritual aperture, how can the true workings flow freely? Is this not a great sickness for those engaged in spiritual practice? Now I will point out the root of the sickness. As for obstructions, the Taoist tradition speaks of two kinds: the obstruction of principle and the obstruction of affairs. If you do not understand affairs, true and false are hard to distinguish; if you do not grasp principle, orthodox and heterodox cannot be told apart. If you hold to principle in judging affairs, rigid and pedantic, principle obstructs the mind; if you act in ways that harm principle, perverse and contrary, affairs injure your nature. Whether principle or affairs, whatever you cling to becomes an obstruction.
Now I will explain the word “obstruction” in detail.
Assembly, the thousand scriptures and ten thousand canons all bid you, the assembly, to do good and learn what is good, to cultivate perfection and awaken to the Tao. When living beings do not do good but do evil instead, do not learn what is good but learn what is bad instead, do not cultivate the true but play with the false instead, and do not awaken to the Tao but ruin the teaching instead—this is called the obstruction of affairs in the original mind. Then there are renunciants who do good and cling to goodness, learn what is good and cling to it, cultivate perfection and take it too literally, awaken to the Tao and attach to forms—all because they have not been liberated from what is good. This is called the obstruction of principle in the original mind. Those with these two obstructions of affairs and principle are still of the kind who strive upward. There is yet another kind of practitioner whose mind-ground is not yet clear and whose heavenly workings have not yet turned; they give rise to obstructions everywhere. When they see those of us who strive upward expounding the scriptures and teaching the precepts, they openly praise us but secretly stir up ignorance, giving rise to an obstructed mind and moving ignorant thoughts.
Assembly, if the obstructed mind is not removed, it is like wishing to cross the sea of suffering: there is a boat, a raft, a sail, and an oar, and clearly one could cross the sea, yet one cannot cross. Why is that? Because dark clouds are rolling in across the sky, and there is sure to be the danger of wind and waves, so one dares not cross the sea.
Assembly, your daily accumulation of merit and good deeds, doing good and learning what is good, cultivating perfection and awakening to the Tao—is it not all meant to take you out of the sea of suffering? And these scriptures, merits, precepts, and practices, these good affinities and good deeds—are they not the boat, the raft, the sail, and the oar? Since you have a boat, you ought to have crossed this sea. Why have you not? You do not realize that this bit of obstructed mind is like dark clouds rolling in across the sky: there is sure to be the danger of wind and waves, and so you cannot cross.
Assembly, the sea of suffering is boundless; turn your head, and there is the shore. Only when obstructions are removed and cut off, and the dark clouds in the sky disperse, can you cross out of the sea of suffering. Assembly, have you not heard the Collected Scripture of the Original Deeds of the Most High Jade Emperor (Gaoshang Yuhuang Benxing Jijing)? It plainly declares: “Living beings, only because their obstructions are heavy, cannot behold the compassionate face of the Lord on High.” It also says: “All such obstructions, each of you must cut off.” The Jade Emperor Scripture speaks of cutting off obstructions at the very beginning. Doubt, greed, anger, and so on are all the articles of obstruction. If obstructions are not cut off, clarity and stillness cannot be achieved. And without clarity and stillness, where would the seventeen lights and thirty merits come from? Without lights and merits, how could one become the emperor-lord of ten thousand heavens, the sage teacher of all buddhas? Its three scrolls and five sections all come from cutting off obstructions. And not only the Jade Emperor Scripture: the three teachings and nine schools, the hundred schools of thought, with their thousand words and ten thousand sayings, are all gates of teaching for breaking through darkness and removing folly, cutting off obstructions and understanding principle.
Assembly, the obstructions in the world are very many, differing in coarseness and fineness, size and scale; what I said before was only a rough outline, and there are also subtle obstructions. Suppose you are reading and reciting the scriptures, and their wondrous meaning is deep and profound, while your own intelligence is limited and you cannot understand the purport of the scriptures; this means your own mind’s aperture is not yet numinous and the light of your wisdom is small. If you then will not humble yourself and consult the enlightened—is that not an obstruction? When you have asked and understood, you then grow doubtful, fearing the person’s explanation is not true; you ask another, and the two differ; your mind grows vexed, facing a thousand forks and ten thousand paths—is that not an obstruction? If you read the scriptures together with companions, and they have learned it first while you have not, and your mind is vexed first—is that not an obstruction? And if you have learned it and they have not, and you are delighted—is that not an obstruction? Or if you are talented while others are dull and clumsy, and you are moved to deceive them—is that not an obstruction? Or when you see others doing good, whether giving alms or meritorious practice, if they are rich and you are poor, you grow jealous; if you are rich and they are poor, you become overbearing—is that not an obstruction? Or when, reading the scriptures, you suddenly understand a principle, cling to it as right, and expound it to others, and someone is more enlightened than you, and your mind will not accept it—is that not an obstruction? For instance, when practicing seated meditation you happen upon some wonderful state and immediately boast about it—is that not an obstruction? Or when you hold a wondrous principle you have heard fixed in your mind, knowing only one side of it and not knowing how to adapt—is that not an obstruction? Or when companions in the Tao study under a master together, and you say they are bright and you are dim, not blaming yourself but resenting them for being ahead—is that not an obstruction? As for amassing wealth and not parting with a single coin at the point of death; all the ties of attachment, down to a love of the qin zither, of chess, of calligraphy, of painting; all kinds of fixed notions—some taking talismanic arts as spiritual power and wondrous function, others regarding talismanic arts as inferior methods of deliberate action; what others like, I dislike, and what I resent, others love—all these are obstructions.
Assembly, since you have left the world, you ought to do the work of leaving the world; only then can you transcend it. These obstructions are all sins on the record; how could you transcend the world with them? I wish that you, the assembly, would remove all these obstructions; then the mind’s spirit will not be obscured and wisdom will gradually arise. Remove them entirely over a long time, and the mind-ground will be empty and the heaven of your nature will shine brightly. Within it there are wonders of their own, and understanding the workings of birth and death, of coming and going, depends only on whether obstructions can be cut off or not. If you wish to leave the sea of suffering, please first remove all obstructions, and there will be no danger of wind and waves!