Three benefits of 'obstacle blessings'
On Tuesday evening this week, just after supper, Koala - my wife - called me urgently to the kitchen.
“There’s a weird noise coming from in here!”
We have an open-plan kitchen and living area. From the sofa she’d heard a loud ‘pop’ followed by a hissing sound. Within moments we’d opened a cupboard door under the sink. Hot water was spraying vigorously from a plumbing fixture. It had already soaked the contents of the top shelf and was streaming through a gap to the bottom one.
I hurried to the front of our property and turned off the water mains. The gushing instantly stopped and we were able to begin drying-up operations right away. As it turned out, we were without running water until midway through the following morning. Fortunately, we have friendly neighbours.
When the plumber arrived, he showed me the frayed tube that was the cause of the problem. “Normal wear and tear,” he said. “I get callouts for these all the time.”
I wouldn’t normally write about something so tedious as a kitchen sink drama. But by chance it opens the door to the theme I’d already chosen for this week. As Koala and I mopped up the damage, towelling off the myriad items stored under the sink, we talked about how lucky we were that she’d been right there when the leak began. Both of us could so easily have been elsewhere.
How bad would the damage have been if we’d only discovered it after an evening out? Or worse. We have only recently returned from a trip to the other side of Australia: what if had happened while we were away? What state would the house have been in after days of high-volume leakage? Cupboards would have been ruined. The floating wooden floors in the kitchen would have lifted. Water would almost certainly have flooded into the sitting room, damaging the floors and furniture.
No doubting it: we had got off lightly.
The idea of an ‘obstacle blessing’ is a helpful Buddhist reframe of something that we may otherwise see only as a problem. Whether applied to trivial hassles, like our water leak, or the most profound of afflictions, the idea is to find the positive, to discover the silver lining, to place the pain that we’re experiencing in a much wider and more objective context.
Benefit 1: We suffer less
Why do this? First, and most obviously because we suffer less. When we recognise that things could be very much worse it makes our pain easier to bear. When we’re able to step back and survey the dramas of our life in a broader way, it helps drain the negative thoughts and feelings out of them. Taking a wider view, we recognise that far from being victims of fickle fate we are, rather, among a fortunate few to have escaped far greater torment.
This sense of good fortune can apply even in circumstances that may seem to offer no possible upside. I vividly remember a conversation with a Buddhist friend who had been living with a terminal cancer diagnosis for years and knew that she was in the last weeks of life. As we sat in the warm autumn sun together, she told me sincerely, “You know, I really hope that everyone else has the chance to die from cancer. It gives you the opportunity to get ready for death. I feel so lucky to have this time to prepare.”
An extraordinary thing to say, perhaps. But my friend was glowing with contentment. Even in the face of death she had found a reason to experience a sense of remarkable good fortune.
Benefit 2: We are encouraged to find meaning
A second benefit of getting into the habit of perceiving obstacle blessings is that we are encouraged to find meaning. If we are enduring adversity, facing setbacks – quite possibly on multiple fronts - how can we turn this experience into something useful?
You can read about my own response to what felt like the darkest moments of my writing career in an article I was invited to write by Jane Ratcliffe of Beyond, which is my main post this week. You’ll find a link below.
When everything is going well for us, or even just steadily, we have no reason to review our behaviour. It’s usually a drama of some kind – health, relationship, financial – that forces us to change.
Very often, the people who arrive at our Buddhist centre for intro courses are going through just such an upheaval. Consciously or not they are looking for a different way. A new approach, some fresh insights, anything that will help bring pain relief and fresh purpose to life.
That widely known symbol of Buddhism, the lotus, embodies exactly this point. The lotus plant uses the mud of suffering to propel its upward growth until rising above the swamp to achieve the exquisite flowering of transcendence.
No mud, no lotus.
Benefit 3: It helps us let go
A third benefit of obstacle blessings is based on karma: whatever pain we have endured is now over. In the past. The karma for it has been exhausted. Like other elements of the obstacle blessing construct, this one has a very pragmatic benefit: it helps us let go.
After we have endured a trauma of any kind, it’s by no means unusual to continue to carry it long after the crisis has past. I know others, who like me, have been through cancer, and who see carcinogens around every corner – and, come to that, under every kitchen sink! They are constantly reading about the risks of this and hazards of that, fixating on them with an intensity that can be quite exhausting.
Enough already! That karma is done and dusted. The practice of obstacle blessings encourages us to let go of what has happened and move on.
This has turned out to be a longer introduction to my obstacle blessing article than the few lines I had planned - ‘twas ever thus! But I hope this practice may offer some readers a useful tool, perhaps a new practice to consider for your own benefit, as well as for those around you!
My heartfelt thanks to Jane Ratcliffe for inviting me to write for her wonderful Substack newsletter Beyond!
Please click the button below to go to my article on Obstacle Blessings in Writing & Life.
About half the money readers help me raise through subscriptions goes to the following four charities. Feel free to click on the underlined links to read more about them:
Wild is Life - home to endangered wildlife and the Zimbabwe Elephant Nursery; Twala Trust Animal Sanctuary - supporting indigenous animals as well as pets in extremely disadvantaged communities; Dongyu Gyatsal Ling Nunnery - supporting Buddhist nuns from the Himalaya regions; Gaden Relief - supporting Buddhist communities in Mongolia, Tibet, Nepal and India.
Thank you so much, David, for giving a name to what I seem to be deeply learning in this past year. It has brought not one but two cancer diagnoses (I am a slow learner) but both were caught early and are curable. My body's wisdom raised strange signals long before I or my doctors would have gone looking. I anticipated that this clearing of my karma would have been dreary payback for years of abundance in my life, but instead it has been--even amidst the pain of radiation and chemo--very often a time of joy and happiness and an ongoing shower of blessings. I am learning so very much about myself, my body, friendship, love, and the Divine Mystery. As I face my final surgery this week I look forward to having all this "done and dusted" and eager for the new and unknown life for which it has been preparing me--which will include a Mindful Safari!
Obstacle Blessings come in so many shapes and sizes and ways... It is also important to understand in situations where catastrophe has struck and you were not involved because you encountered an "obstacle blessing" you should Not Feel Guilty. I have a friend who was running late for work because of a sick child who she had been up with all night. She missed the train she normally caught into the City, and then a flat tire on her car in the garage made it impossible for her to drive. She tried calling her boss but something was wrong with the phones. The Morning was 9/11/2001. She worked in the World Trade Center. She lost almost everyone she worked with. Had she been on time she would have been there. For years she suffered from Survivor's Guilt. It's real. She had a very hard time for many years. She now understands and accepts that the obstacle blessing she experienced with her sick daughter made it possible for her and others to go on and do some great things to help others affected by the tragedy, and personally, to be available for her aging parents, their transition, the marriage of her daughter and the birth of her grandchildren. Life goes on and we must chose the story line we wish to follow. She chose peace and happiness despite her losses 🙏🏽💜 xoxo