Hugh Byrne
June 21, 2026
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Live Summary, Sunday, June 21, 2026: It was good to be with you for our live session on Sunday. The theme of the session was ‘Three key Buddhist teachings of freedom.’ We focused on the third of the teachings—making the obstacle the path.
Here are some of the main themes, poems, and quotes from the live session:
We began by reviewing the first two teachings that we discussed in the previous session: 1) to ‘see for yourself’—the Buddha’s teaching to test whether particular actions lead to well-being or to harm and suffering, and to choose those that lead to happiness, well-being and freedom; and 2) the path to freedom comes through meeting our present-moment experience with acceptance. As the Buddha said, mindfulness is the ‘direct path to liberation.’
We then focused on the third key teaching of the Buddha: to treat difficulties and obstacles as opportunities to see clearly and awaken, rather than seeing them as barriers that get in the way of our happiness and freedom.
In Zen Buddhism, it’s said that ‘the obstacle is the path.’ Turning towards the difficulty and saying ‘yes’ to it, meeting it without resistance, is the key to freedom. Adversity and difficulties point us to what we need to see and learn. Someone who triggers anger, judgment or blame in us is pointing us to something that we need to investigate and let go of (even if this is typically not their intention).
The Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke provided encouragement to ‘always trust in the difficult.’ In his ‘Letters to a Young Poet,’ he wrote:
• “We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience.
How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.” (Rilke, ‘Letters to a Young Poet.’)
When we trust in the difficult we’re changing our orientation—rather than seeing the thing that seems to be causing us problems as a barrier or obstacle to our happiness, we can turn towards it as an opportunity or a challenge and a place to find true happiness. Without difficulties and obstacles, we would have little impetus to examine what we are holding on to or resisting, we’d have little reason to explore our suffering. The difficulties are where we can investigate the cause of our suffering and wake up…
The way we work with difficulties is to turn towards the judgment, the blame, the anger—or whatever appears as a difficulty or problem—and allow ourselves to feel it. Notice the story or narrative that typically accompanies the difficult feelings—'he’s a bad person’, ‘they’re cruel and thoughtless’, etc.—and let the stories and narratives go without holding on to them… and let the feelings come and go in their own time… We can ask ourselves, ‘What am I clinging to that is keeping me in this relationship of resistance to my experience?’
The Sufi poet Rumi in his poem ‘The Guest House’ invites us to ‘welcome the guests’, ‘even if they’re a crowd of sorrows.’ He continues: ‘The dark thought, the shame, the malice // Meet them at the door laughing // And invite them in // Be grateful for whoever comes // Because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
Typically we live our lives caught up in pushing and pulling—pushing away the things we don’t like and pulling towards us things we want or like. When this is our orientation—the lens through which we look at and experience the world—then we will suffer because life won’t always give us what we like and keep away what we don’t like—and we’re dependent on outside conditions to provide us with happiness.
However, when our orientation is to see the difficulty as the path, then nothing is inherently a problem: What would otherwise appear as problems are experienced as situations to deal with, challenges, and opportunities for growth. We’re not depending on anything outside ourself being any particular way. Our happiness, well-being, and true peace depend on our own actions. We can still change what needs to be and can be changed. In Eckhart Tolle’s words:
• “Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and must choose now. Then accept the consequences. No excuses. No negativity. No psychic pollution. Keep your inner space clear.’ (Tolle, ‘The Power of Now’, p68)
Other quotes and poems I shared included:
• “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed unless it is faced.” (James Baldwin)
• John O’Donohue, poem ‘Fluent’: “I would love to live // Like a river flows, // Carried by the surprise // Of its own unfolding.”
Wishing you a good week ahead and see you on Sunday, July 12 at 9am eastern for our next live session. Warmly, Hugh 🙏🏻 💜 🌻
