Beginners’ Obstacles to Meditation

Advice for Beginners: How to Overcome Obstacles to Meditation

by Adzom Gyalse, Gyurme Dorje

Beginners should watch for three obstacles when practising meditation:

Initially, distracting thoughts involving attachment, aversion and so on may arise. When this happens supplicate your guru, and by bringing him or her to mind, you'll be freed from this obstacle.

In the interim, you may fall prey to the curses and spells of demons and other ethereal entities, so that you experience illness, sharp pains and the like. At that time, supplicate your sublime guru, pray to be able to use these difficulties to enhance your spiritual path, and, as a result, you'll pass through the obstacle.

Eventually, all yogins, regardless of capacity, will garner fame and respect, be showered with donations, etc. The failure to recognize these as obstacles to spiritual practice will hinder your progress; it is imperative to acknowledge them as deviations!

If you are free of these three obstacles, your Dharma practice will remain incorruptible.

This is crucial advice.

| Translated by Sean Price, 2019.