The Man and the Sandpiper

Once there was a man who wished to find the way to attain his goals. So he prayed to the Almighty for help.
That night the man had a dream in which he was a little sandpiper on a wave-swept shore. As he stepped nimbly in and out with the wave tips, his sandpiper heart beat with a happy wisdom that his human mind had never known.
When the man awoke, he sought out the seashore to study the sandpiper. Returning to his life, he experienced increasing happiness and success.
On occasion the man would return to the seashore to study under the inspiration of the long-legged little sandpiper. Eventually his quest touched upon inner aspects of being.
Gradually the man was imbued with spiritual presence. Compassion flowed from him. Things he touched flourished. And when he laid himself down for his final earthly sleep, his spirit, resembling a little, long-legged bird of purest light, rose in glory into the heavenly shining.

The obstacle is the path

Obstacles do not obstruct the path.
To cross them is to advance on the path.

Meditation

By amending our mistakes, we get wisdom.
By defending our faults, we betray an unsound mind.

Meditation

He who treads the Path in earnest
Sees not the mistakes of the world;
If we find fault with others
We ourselves are also in the wrong.

-Dhammapada, 188-192

They go to many a refuge,
to mountains, forests,
parks, trees, and shrines:

people threatened with danger.
That's not the secure refuge,
that's not the highest refuge,
that's not the refuge,

having gone to which,
you gain release
from all suffering and stress.

But when, having gone for refuge
to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha,
you see with right discernment
the four Noble Truths —

stress,
the cause of stress,
the transcending of stress,
and the Noble Eightfold Path,

the way to the stilling of stress:
That's the secure refuge,
that, the highest refuge,
that is the refuge,

having gone to which,
you gain release
from all suffering and stress.