What holds Buddhas back?

A fundamental principle in the Buddha's teachings is that all beings have buddhanature. This buddhanature is the nature of our own mind, and though it is always fully evident it often goes unrecognized. Instead of embracing the path of becoming buddhas, or being buddha (which really means the path of waking up, or being awake), we find ourselves entangled in the mess of life with all of our problems. As the Buddha says:

Noble child, all beings, though they find themselves with all sorts of afflictions,
Have a tathagata-garbha that is eternally unsullied, 

and that is replete with virtues no different from my own.

Tathagatagarbha Sutra

If the tathagatagarbha, or buddhanature, is our fundamental nature of mind, why does it go unrecognized and why we do lack fulfillment?

There are four obscuring factors that keep us entangled in the afflictions: cognitive obscurations, emotional obscurations, habitual tendencies and karma. The work of the path of waking up and actualizing our buddhanature is to untie these ropes and release ourselves from bondage. The path of liberation is the path of freeing ourselves from these shackles and actualizing the resultant state, which is our innate buddhanature and natural awakened mind.

Cognitive obscurations are obscuring factors of our understanding and view of who we are and the nature of the world around us. All of us have bias, views we hold to as true, and cultural associations that go unquestioned. The work of untying the knots of cognitive obscurations is to shine a light on the way we actually think and perceive the world around us and our place in it. 

Emotional obscurations are the five primary negative emotions: attachment, aversion, confusion, jealousy, and arrogance. Each of these emotions overwhelms our minds and is centered on me and mine. It is not that these emotions are inherently bad or can't be used for good, but that in the presence of these emotions we often go blind and function solely out of reactive, self-centered impulses. The work of untying the knots of emotional obscurations is to find space amidst the emotions, so that we can work and respond to the energy that is coming up rather than becoming overwhelmed by that energy and reacting impulsively. 

Habitual tendencies are subtle and hard to break. So much of our conditioning comes from our childhood and from our culture, so much so that we don't usually know why we do the things we do or care about the things we think we care about. Habitual tendencies are hard to break because they are the rails or ski tracks that our day to day life is built around. It is so hard to break out of the tracks, and even if we manage to escape for a moment, it is also very easy to slip back in. The work of untying the knots of habitual tendencies is to introduce a fresh fall of snow powder over the terrain, and then do the hard work of charting a new course through the fresh powder. 

Karma is our actions and the results of our actions. Karma is also hard to untie because we cannot undo the past. All of our past actions have led us to the present moment, and that is what we have to work with. The good news is that all of our current actions are creating the moments of our future, and so we can give our future self the gift of good actions that we can later enjoy. As long as we operate in this world we always have karmic conditioning and karmic relationships. Karma doesn't need to be a binding force, as we learn to work with karma on the path you can start to recognize how everything is naturally free in its own place, even if things aren't quite the way you would have liked them to be. The present is the only moment you have to work with, so work with it. 

As we loosen the shackles of these four binding forces, gradually our own true nature becomes more and more evident. Much like gold is slowly extracted and refined from its ore, so too our awakened mind is gradually revealed and made fully evident.