Today, let’s talk about the “obstruction of knowledge” (所知障). Is it a support or a hindrance on the path of awakening and spiritual cultivation?
This is a topic I’ve long wanted to discuss. Since the founding of my studio, the people I’ve encountered most are those who are highly intelligent. They all share one common trait: they’re extremely smart. From a worldly perspective, isn’t intelligence considered a good thing? Perhaps. It depends on how you see it.
A few days ago, someone left an interesting comment. They said they had briefly watched one of my videos and felt that energy healing is a profound discipline. They hoped I would one day selflessly share the method for healing depression so more people could benefit.
There are several reasons why I don’t make my courses freely available. First, people tend not to value what comes for free — this is human nature. Second, energy healing is a long-term process, not something that can be “fixed” in a day or two. During the process of clearing, each person experiences different issues due to the unique karmic imprints they carry. That means the help I offer is also a long-term journey.
Moreover, depression is a special case. In the early stages of emotional clearing, one often experiences intense emotional fluctuations. That’s why I emphasize in my courses the importance of making an energetic connection with me before practice. My energy field can assist you — this is crucial. It's also why some psychotherapists end up with their own mental health issues: energy is fluid. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean you’re not affected. Without a stabilizing force of positive energy, it’s easy to be thrown off balance.
Now, if you truly can’t afford the course, you can still watch more of my videos — the answers are already within them. These methods have always been there. They’re not something I “discovered.” Ancient scriptures have recorded them for centuries, and practitioners through the ages have drawn insights from their own practices. These teachings have always been open to the world.
However, in this Dharma-ending age, these methods have been scattered across countless schools and sects. Add to that the commercialization of the spiritual space and the flood of superficial “spiritual inspiration,” and few can discern the correct path. Even if one stumbles upon a piece of truth, they often don’t know where to begin or how to correctly apply it to their body and mind in order to truly benefit.
So where does the problem lie?
Many people are hindered by what is known as the “obstruction of knowledge.”
The soul is an experiential being, often trapped within the radius of its own experiences. Without awareness, this radius can shrink further and further.
I remember when my crown chakra opened, I started having memory problems. I would forget what I just learned a moment ago. In one of my previous videos, titled “Before Gaining Wisdom, Let Yourself Become Stupid,” someone even joked, “Just don’t forget how to speak.” Thankfully, I didn’t.
At the time, I didn’t understand what was happening. But as I continued correcting and aligning myself, I began to realize — when we use spiritual energy to purify this karmic body, or when we engage in spiritual practice, intelligence becomes useless. During the crown chakra’s opening, spiritual energy clears the channels in the head, rewiring our mental patterns and purging useless information. It’s like a spiritual “decluttering” of the mind, making the ego’s thoughts more efficient.
More importantly, we are dealing with matters beyond the realm of human logic. Human experience doesn’t apply here.
That’s why highly educated people tend to believe only in science. Anything not evidence-based is dismissed as superstition — because all their experiences and knowledge were acquired through the human world. Their accumulated knowledge becomes the very limitation of their cognitive radius.
Yet anyone with a bit of awareness knows: science is still in its exploratory phase. What’s considered “known” today is merely what humanity thinks it understands so far.
To believe only in science is, ironically, a form of superstition.
When engaging in spiritual discussion with such individuals, they often sound more like philosophers — constantly analyzing contradictions, logic, and dialectics. Why? Because within that limited cognitive framework, contradictory ideas or phenomena naturally arise.
Another major challenge is language itself — especially Chinese — which is full of ambiguity and multiple interpretations. The more we rely on language, the harder it becomes to truly understand. Transcendent wisdom lies beyond words. All the interpretations and teachings offered by enlightened ones are merely signposts — they are not the destination. If we become entangled in the words, we’ll simply circle back into the narrative, turning teachings into more “spiritual stories” or “inspirational quotes,” and may never find the true gateway to practice.
That’s why I always stress: on the path of cultivation, you need real practice and real verification.
Don’t become merely a scholar of the human world — clinging to scriptures, debating terminology, parsing philosophy.
There’s another kind of “smart person” I often meet — they grasp things quickly. You don’t need to explain much to them; just give them a technique and they’ll say they got it. Next time you meet, they tell you they practiced and it worked. And that’s it — the story ends. No depth, no follow-up.
We live in an age of information overload and fast consumption. Short videos dominate every platform. In just a few minutes, you can “learn” something new. Many people are convinced that a few keywords or a quick trick can solve everything. But is it truly effective? Is the knowledge truly absorbed?
I don’t know.
What I do know is: people haven’t become wiser. In fact, from what we see across social media, people seem more lost, more anxious, more confused — and far more easily triggered.
Spiritual cultivation is not a test.
It’s not about writing an answer and handing in a paper.
Until we reach the ultimate truth (实相), we’re all still on the path.
When we begin the process of “using illusion to cultivate the real” (借假修真), we step into a cycle of disillusionment and emptiness. But at this stage, the “emptiness” we understand is still leaky — still incomplete. We must keep breaking and rebuilding — over and over — in order to break out of this cycle and return to true reality.
That’s why there is no fixed method in the Dharma.
In this dynamic process, we must continually return to ourselves — to the present “self” — and use the method most suited to this moment to make the next correction.
In this Dharma-ending age, this chaotic world of five impurities, to encounter the true Dharma already requires great merit and a heart of awareness. But even more so, it requires us to maintain the mind of an empty vessel. Without inner emptiness, there is no space for wisdom to arise.