“Enlightenment, for a wave in the ocean,
is the moment the wave realizes it is water."
—Thich Nhat Hanh
November, turning the clocks back, leaves running scared with naught but trees naked and swaying in the cold autumn winds, dark around 4:30PM from now until March. ‘Tis time to turn inward and nourish the warmth of the light from within. The last few years have been a battle. Prostate cancer checkups, anxiety until the surgery on August 2nd, 2022 when I was finally cured, keeping sane and calm in the interim best I could with meditative Dharma, art, surfing and a healthy regimen of that blessed St. John’s Wort. Being a surfing Buddhist makes sense to me, but in the past I have been shy about talking about it for many reasons.
Many surfers I know are either anti-faith/anti-religion, new-age, or full born again Christians, and none seem in any way prepared to understand or comprehend the way of Dharma and meditation. The anti-religious camp has its reasons and so do the born again Christian people, I suppose. The few times I have tried to share faith with my fellow Christian brethren, they misunderstood Buddhism to be some kind of Devil’s shite and even talked about how meditation was itself evil. So I just gave up.
Buddhism actually has an anti-conversion clause so Buddhists aren’t supposed to try to convert or indoctrinate people, especially if they hold faith in other religions. Sobriety is also a major tenant of Buddhism, keeping the mind and body clean, clear and free of illusions or perceptive distortions. Depending upon which tradition or branch of Buddhism you follow, you are not supposed to drink or take drugs, or at least one should not drink in excess, especially on certain days of the month, or the year.
There are plenty of people - sober or not - who are open to ideas regarding Dharma, meditation and surfing, but many are unfortunately also rife with new age confusions, or completely lost in their own respective drug haze. Many new-agers for example, misunderstand almost everything by cherry picking random, misunderstood, unrelated elements of religion, or what they think are “meditations” and thereby bury themselves further and deeper into untold confusions and misunderstandings of reality. In the end, it seems it has generally been best to just keep what little I know of Dharma to myself especially within the surfing community.
The truth is surfing, yoga, meditation, and art all inform each other. Just look at Gerry Lopez and Taylor Knox! Learning to breathe, chant and sit properly, calm, bright and present in the so-called ‘now’ is quite the same as surfing when your game is on and you're just floating, flying free, full tilt across the breaking waves. Plus, when things get frustrating in the surf like a lack of waves, or onshore winds, or crowds, drop-ins, injuries and so on, what a painfully obvious illustration of the ocean of samsara! The human realm -it is taught - is rife with constant activity and unending frustration. Plus, there are the painful realities of birth, aging, sickness, and death. Oy vey! So yeah, Buddhism just makes sense to me personally on so many levels.
I officially started out on the Dharma path back in the winter of 1997 -1998, when I was living in Kauai. At the time, Hanalai Bay and Kalihiwai were my two favorite waves. But despite living in a relative paradise of sorts, I still felt a tad adrift. I couldn’t quite connect with many of the fellow surfers or other hippie-type people over there. Too many weird ideologies. Too many conspiracy theory types and burnouts for my taste. The locals in Kauai embraced me, but I also didn’t want to push it. I was their guest so I tried to be as low impact and respectful as possible. After a while, Titus and Kasey Curtis would sometimes give me waves at the Bay. I was very grateful and did not want to jeopardize that hard won acceptance.
Back then I managed a coffee shop. I was a barista. It was just the owner and myself who worked there. The owner never actually spent any time at the coffee shop and she didn’t even know the difference between a latte and a cappuccino. When I first started she tried to show me how to foam the milk by telling me to sink the steam nozzle all the way to the bottom. I later showed her how, in actuality, the secret is to foam the milk at the surface right or just below the steam-hole exit. She was shocked. Then that was it. I was hired as the manager.
Thank God I grew up next door to the Saladinos who were straight from Italy and who had long ago taught me in the art of Italian coffee making on their massive, ornate, copper, cappuccino machine that they had brought back from their homeland in the early 80s.
The coffee shop manager/barista job allowed me to live comfortably in Kauai. I lived in a huge house with my girlfriend at the time in our own private valley with a few other housemates. There were huge rooms, a massive kitchen and plenty of room for all. On one of my first nights there, a magnificent barn owl appeared at dusk beneath the Hawaiian full moon and silently glided and circled through the whole of the valley we lived in, blessing us with her watchful eyes as she staked out her territory with a knowing awareness and presence.
Soon after starting the coffee shop job, I stumbled upon a day-glow orange flyer in the window at the gas station on my way to Hanalei for a surf. The sign read: “Tantric Tibetan Buddhism” and it had an image of a male and female buddha in meditative union. I thought “Well that looks appealing!” So, I took note of the details on the flyer for a future visit, finished topping off the gas in my 1986 Nissan pickup and then drove to the bay for a surf.
A week or so later one eve, I found myself at Kagyu Thübten Chöling dharma center on Kahuna Road next to a small stream and surrounded by subtropical jungle-esque flora. The center was an octagonal house, reminiscent of a yurt mixed with a Swiss style chalet including a high roof. I went in and mingled a bit with some of the people there. Then, Lama Tashi introduced himself to me and we all had some tea and sat down on cushions for a Dharma talk followed by Tibetan chanting and meditation. For many reasons that I shan’t bore the reader with, after this first introduction, my interest peaked and within a few months’ time, I formally took refuge in April of 1998.
Pretty much every fall once Daylight Savings time ends, I am essentially screwed out of surfing except for on weekends. My work schedule is 8:00PM–4:30PM, five days a week. Hence, once the sun goes down at any time earlier than 5:00PM, I have no time to surf after work. This relegates me to weekend warrior status from November through March, leaving only Saturdays or Sundays available for a possible surf. On top of that, you need the right conditions, not to mention some actual waves.
As a result of this, I mentally break the year into two halves - the light half of the year and the dark half of the year. During the dark half, I focus inwards, ramp up my daily meditations and Dharma studies, and try to surf when and if I can.
Throughout this time, I try to focus on the illusory nature of appearances, work on not being attached to the ego fixation of being a surfer, make art, and focus on compassion for others.. I often think that if the Rolling Stones can’t always get what they want, then what hope does a poor slob like myself have at materialistic happiness? And, isn’t all materialistic stuff ultimately meaningless anyhow? I mean, what if you DO finally get your dream house or spouse or car and whatever? Then what? Is it not the case that dissatisfaction inevitably seeps in within months or years thereafter? Aren’t you soon beleaguered by keeping up with payments, complaints, and dissatisfaction again and again ad infinitum? This is the human condition. No matter how much money you have, it’s never enough. Same goes for sex, drugs, rock and roll and so on.
So where does true happiness come from? Is there even such a thing? Have we just been conned on the idea of a fake ass plastic world full of Coke and Pepsi and toxic micro-plastic laden burgers that will do naught but speed up how soon we are to die?
As surfers, especially here in New York, we wait and we wait for a good swell to come no matter what time of year or how cold it might be. We wait and we wait. Then, after days or weeks, or sometimes even months, finally a decent swell comes along coupled with the right wind and tidal conditions. Never mind all the days we went down there to our favorite break and found nothing but onshore winds and shin to knee-high, wind-slop drivel, barely enough to ride a longboard. Never mind those stupid ass hop-foils, or those polystyrene-cored POS SUPs falling over the place, greedily stealing wave after wave. Ugh and blech. (To those respectful, wait your turn at the peak, my fellow SUP and foil riders! You are not included in this rant by the way, just the rude wretched kooks with no etiquette).
So anyway, a swell with good conditions finally comes along in New York and what happens? You get there and it’s packed to the gills full of dropping-in-kooks, wankers and a-holes, and you have to sit there and wait your turn in the lineup, trying to be a gentleman (or a gentlewoman) and you respect the rotation despite all the falling, flailing, useless f***tards who don’t have a clue and - more often than not - you’ll get frustrated and peeved by the very same endeavor you’ve been dreaming of and wished for every waking day of your surfing life. In other words, it’s flippin’ samsara.
So how do you deal with it? Well, for me, I start with some breathing. Or perhaps before I go out, I say to myself, “Just go out there and be. Just sit there and wait.” Oftentimes this does work. You just line up your take off spot, wait your turn, and - if you’re surfing halfway decently - you’ll get enough waves and it’ll all be ok. It may even be actually quite fun sharing waves with your many other “friends” at the break. But again, it takes practice.
Meditation and Dharma don’t magically allow you to surf better or catch more waves. Dharma and meditation are not goal-oriented practices. The idea is not to become better, more improved, or somehow even more awesome. There’s no secret formula. In fact, these practices take years, decades and lifetimes to develop, and are more about the acceptance of being humdrum, and relaxed. These practices allow us to appreciate both ours and others’ sameness in terms of day-to-day living including life worries, concerns, and regular travails.
Essentially, the idea of Mahamudra, Dzogchen, etc., are about developing an open awareness combined with presence, compassion, and lucidity of mind. In other words, you relax within your surroundings, but are not dull, or zoned out. You are not blocking thoughts, but simply and wakefully sitting and observing bearing witness to whatever is percolating through your consciousness.
In many ways, this is like sitting on your board in the surf waiting for waves. You are there waiting, watching, observing, ready to start paddling, and ultimately, you just sit there until it happens and a wave pops up and comes forward for you to ride. You may find yourself jockeying for position if it’s crowded, or just being there alone when there is no one else out. All of this is kind of the same as the many or few thoughts that may or may not be shooting through your mind at any given moment. So Dharma practice, the constant repetition of meditating day after day on one’s breath, plus repeating a mantra, quietly sitting in compassionate awareness becomes similar to connecting to your fellow surfers in the lineup, of knowing the angst of flat spells, or being scared when the surf is too big for you. Essentially, sitting with yourself in meditation after many years allows you to know your ins and outs far better and allows you to recognize your similarities with fellow mankind. The more your practice, the more calm and compassionate you eventually become.
Some people say surfing is a type of yoga. I’m not sure I agree with that. I would say surfing is more like a martial art. You are not one with the wave, you are in a dynamic, adversarial relationship with the ocean and waves therein. Back and forth, win and lose, defeat and triumph. Dharma is like that also. It’s not like in a theistic religion where if you worship so and so and do A, B and C, you will get a reward whether it is here or in heaven. No, Dharma is about the ups, downs, and sideways happenings of life, and learning how to be the calm in the eye of the storm as best that you can, which is often not often! It is the same with surfing. Some days you are great, while on many days less great perhaps. But it’s always still beautiful and wonderful to be out in the sea with your friends and the seals and dolphins and whales and everything else. We learn to appreciate the sunrise and sunset sessions, the fresh briny air, the magnificent storms and swells of hurricane season in fall at the coves and so on. It's wonderous.
Sometimes, I’ll sit and breathe while I’m bobbing up and down on my board, waiting for a good wave free of kooks on it. I’m practicing patience, compassion and presence best I can until a good one rolls in and I spin around, paddle and drop into that wave, riding it as best as I can in a state of present dynamic awareness. My body and mind are unified and as in sync with the wave as I’m able.
There is a meditation I like to do when I’m out in the water, where you mingle your mind with the sky. By mind, it means your entire being, your whole sense of awareness/awakeness head-to-toe and everything around you. Mind in Dharma does not mean brain. Whether or not thinking is from the brain is not the point, that is another discussion altogether. But our entire body is mind, centered from our heart looking outwards, and so is mind everywhere our thinking or our awareness touches or goes. Think about how octopuses' minds/brains extend throughout the entirety of their bodies right to the tips of their tentacles and you begin to get the idea. Another example is if you think of New York City, you’re instantly there in your mind, and at the same time you are most likely perfectly aware that you're sitting or standing or surfing or walking wherever you’re at while thinking this. So the mind can go anywhere, in an instant, at the snap of a finger. The more you relax into the possibilities of mind, and the more you learn to allow the mind to settle, the more you will begin to recognize when the mind reaches out or chases after thoughts, desires, ideas and ideals and so on.
Sometimes I do this when I’m out there in the lineup especially between sets or during lulls. I’ll take a few moments to relax and mingle my mind with the wide open sky and the endless sea, just relaxing and feeling myself float, appreciating the sky and the sun and the birds and the fish and the whales and everything, just appreciating the beauty of life and my aliveness. This allows me to get out of my head and recenter, getting away mentally, internally, from all of the possible frustrations of a crowded lineup or surf spot.
Most of the time though, meditation and surfing are in the same universe but still separate. They are parallel, but rarely intersect.
Dharma meditation is supposed to be without goal, just a total abandonment of the world and the concerns and frustrations of men and society. Surfing however, is goal oriented. Catch that wave, rip that peak, smack that lip!! As Sunny Garcia used to say; “Do something!” But, then again, when you’re doing it right, dropping in free, sailing down the wave at high speed, the silence rushing up as you fly down the line and rip turn after turn or lock into the barrel in perfect tune with the wave, then that is when the mingle of the mind meditation and does in fact intersect and you’re Zen surfing. That’s probably one of the best feelings in the world.
Again, I would infer that surfing and mediation are not one and the same but can inform one another. Paradox. Surfing informs meditation, especially with regard to posture and how you sit with your mind, your thoughts and your feelings. “Not too tight, not too loose,” as the Buddha said. Meditation also informs surfing, but it does take a long while for that to happen - years and decades not weeks or months.
All this new age BS does everyone a disservice. Take, for example, the so-called Tibetan bowl sound bath meditations. These are fake, they are not real practices. Real practice requires work, repetition, personal responsibility and experience. Any “practice” that requires you to do nothing but sit there and put in no effort of your own is not real. As it is said; “The Buddha cannot make you enlightened, only you can discover enlightenment. The Buddha can only show us the way, he cannot walk the path for us. That is our job.” You cannot be “healed” by a “sound bath”. Those “Tibetan” bowls aren’t even Tibetan, they are from Nepal. Singing bowls, and Japanese gong-bowls are simply for beginning and ending meditations. One focuses on the emptiness of the sound of the bowl as it goes from loud to quiet, and then one sits in quiet meditation for 5, 10, 15, or 20 minutes until the bowl is rung again at the end of the session. The singing bowls and the so-called sound bath healing nonsense was something invented for the stoner hippy trail people in the 60s and 70s, when they would go to Kathmandu, Nepal. Weed was legal in Kathmandu back then, and many hippies came back from Nepal with these bowls. It was just a way for the Nepalese to make money. The Nepalese are excellent salesmen! They would sell the hippies these bowls and then all the new-agers came up with all this awful pseudoscience about sound healing and frequencies. But none of it is actually true.
A new age of peace and prosperity is not coming. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. As Trungpa Rinpoche famously said; “We shouldn’t say: ‘Things aren’t as bad as they seem. Things are as bad as they seem!” Microplastics, nuclear proliferation and waste, fascist regimes, dictators, global warming, droughts, floods, conflagrations, fouled water from mining for gas oil and lithium, endless wars and genocides, toxic food supply, cancer, 70-plus-percent of the world’s wildlife being wiped off the face of the planet … I could keep going, but you get the point. So yeah, it’s a world of samsara and anyone telling you otherwise is either delusional, or selling you something. If we are lucky enough to be born somewhere in this world where we are not being murdered, raped, bombed, tortured, starved or enslaved, well then shite, we’re just sooo fucking lucky! Personally, I was born the son of a world traveling surfing doctor, so I was extremely lucky for sure. So far in the first half of my life I have survived a few handfuls of travails nonetheless, but I am definitely lucky compared to the worse possibilities of existence I miht have been born into instead.
Luck has given me a life where I can surf, where I know how to meditate, where I have a decent job and a good living situation. My son and my dad also surf, my godfather is in the Caribbean at one of the better surf breaks, so I count my blessings in private and try to remember how fortunate I really am despite all of my grievances. Because really, how much of a problem is life where your greatest complaint is not getting enough waves at your surf break?
Love is life. The end.
