Barchay.

བར་ཆད་
Tibetan: bar-chay
English: obstacle, hindrance, cut-off

The resistance is real.

One of our main challenges on the path is barchay. We are constantly facing obstacles, problems, and resistance. Every time our aspiration seems to be culminating, some unseen force seems to be holding us back. 

We tend to label circumstances as the obstacle.  If we only had a chance to grab a coffee we would have performed better.  If we weren't caught up in these current projects we would have been able to help. There are all kinds of reasons things didn't work out like they should have. All of those reasons are the resistance, winning. 

This is the battle that we face. The fight between our aspirations and our reality. We know what we would like to do, but this is what our life actually looks like.  Between that gap is a lot of pain and suffering. That gap is a minefield for negative emotions, stress, anxiety and pain. 

This is the battle, turning Dharma into the path. We have a chance to glimpse the authentic and true, but we fall so easily to negative emotions and confusion. The resistance loves nothing more than prolonging our journey, convincing us to take a break, do it tomorrow.  The path, prolonged. Delayed.  We can turn Dharma into the path tomorrow. 

This resistance, all these obstacles and hindrances, they do not lie outside of us.  Outer conditions only supply the moisture for which the seeds of our own afflictions can ripen.  It is our own latent negative emotions, our own innate confusion and neurosis. We have become habituated to our afflictions, mindlessly succumbing to them for eons.  Now is our chance to break the cycle, and yet we feel weak and weary. 

And so we battle. We fight. There may not be so noble a battle as this war that we wage within.