It’s that the Zen student, in struggling with the question, arrives at a new way of being, valuing, if you like, the very nature of the struggle.

The Obstacle Is the Way. The main idea is that difficulties and challenges in life are only obstacles if we make them so. It depends on how we look at those challenges—we can either see obstacles and get blocked, or we can see opportunities and make progress.

When obstacles or people got in his way, he’d see himself on the ‘Road of Trials’, facing the tests, allies and enemies that Vogler wrote about. Instead of getting annoyed by people and any other sort of thing in his way, he’d ask himself, ‘What’s the lesson I’m supposed to take from this test? Who’s the ally I’m supposed to find? How can I learn