Guest Post - The Tao Is Surfing

Malik Aswad
Blogging at God Loves Gravity

I have recently moved to Hawaii and have taken up bodyboarding (boogie boarding). With bodyboarding, surfing, or any other wave-riding water sport, it is difficult to describe the feeling you get when you catch the wave. As with so many other things in life, it's a feeling you have to experience yourself, but I will attempt to provide you with the best description I can.

As you start paddling out from the beach, the water is already somewhat restless. Wave set upon wave set lifting your board up and smacking you back down in the water, you find out quickly that reaching your ideal location to catch a wave does not come easy. You have to endure the disorienting waves. Sometimes they are so big that all you can do is try to dive underwater before they reach you. You see other surfers, bodyboarders, and stand-up paddleboarders paddling behind you one minute, and, in the next second, it seems like they're ten feet ahead of you. You think to yourself, "I feel stupid," but then you realize that it doesn't really matter what those people are doing. They are all on their own quest to catch the wave. Besides, you just started bodyboarding a month ago.

As you paddle out, the waves start becoming bigger, and you end up struggling to keep yourself balanced on the board and try to keep moving forward. You ask yourself if it's worth it trying to go on. You know the waves are breaking really great further out beyond the spot you are currently in, but you contemplate simply staying in your present spot and waiting for a mediocre wave to come to you.

But then you look out and see the best wave you have seen thus far. It is breaking straight, high, and clean. You know that that is the spot to catch the wave. You muster up all your strength and ambition, dig your hands in the water, kick your feet, and head for the wave. It is still far from you, but you can see it. As you swim for it, time and distance become irrelevant. The struggle becomes a delight. You find solace and peace in it. It is no longer a struggle, for it seems so easy to swim to that spot where the wave is breaking once you make the journey toward it. It becomes your pleasure as you fight through the pain.

In what seems like no time at all, you have reached the breaking spot. You wait. You see other people waiting further out in every direction you look. You find yourself in calm waters, but you know what's coming. You look around in awe as you think to yourself, "I made it this far. I can do this." You feel your body lift as a wave approaches you, but that was just a tease. You feel several more tease waves. Your angst borders on impatience but you know that this is where you want to be, and you know that the wave will come to you, so you simply enjoy the sounds of the ocean as you rest in the clear waters.

Then, suddenly, just as you are enjoying the serenity and beauty of the blue ocean water, you spot a wave breaking about ten feet in front of you. Adrenaline pumping, you turn your board around and begin to paddle to shore. You can feel the wave's power approaching you and hear the rush of water behind you. You begin to paddle faster. You hear the wave getting closer and closer, but you do not look back because you know that if you do, you will only slow yourself down and lose focus from the task at hand. You feel the wave lifting you up as you paddle your feet with all you've got. You feel yourself moving faster, but you have not paddled faster. In fact, you have stopped paddling altogether. At this point, you feel the wave pushing you forward. All of a sudden, you feel as though you are flying on the water. You are rushing toward the sandy beach, but you are still far from it. After all, you did so much paddling to reach your ideal spot.

As the wave pushes you, you find there is little you can do to stop it. Even as you relax your muscles a little and adjust your weight, the force of nature's powerful ocean waves blows you across the water as though you were a human jet-ski. But you have done it. You have caught the wave. You begin whooping ecstatically, experiencing a joy like you've never felt before. All of the hard work, the failed attempts at catching the waves, the teases, and the loss of spirit, all of that has lead you to this. And, as you look around you, all you can see is the wave. It's behind you, it's to your left, it's to your right, it's underneath you, and, as you look forward, you see the beach from which you first took off, but you return with the experience and knowledge of catching this wave.

You have felt what it is like to ride the wave, and you know it is a feeling you want to have over and over again. As you think about all of this, you are only about five feet from the shore before the wave dies out. You slow down and eventually paddle for the beach. The water gets shallow and you hop off your board, flippers hitting the sand and reef, still submerged in the water. You reach a point far enough from where the water reaches the sand and recedes back into the ocean and sit down, staring out into the sea of waves in the distance. You are happy. You have felt the joy so many surfers talk about. You prepare yourself to go back into the water. "And this time," you say to yourself, "I'm not getting out."

This is the best explanation I have. Like feeling the Tao, the feeling of catching the wave is indescribable. All you know is that it is a feeling you have never quite had before. When you see the Tao in everything, and everything in the Tao, you feel at peace, even when faced with rushing ocean water closing in on you. When you set upon a spiritual journey, you don't know exactly what to look for or expect. But when you see that wave and catch it, you know exactly why riding the waves is so popular.

I recommend you try it out yourself. Peace.

~

About Malik: I'm 21 years old, and I've been on this spiritual journey of mine since age 11. I like to study all traditions from Hinduism to Hermeticism because I believe they all point to the same One Truth.

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