Put Your Feet Down

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. - Ludwig Wittgenstein in the Zen Calendar (January 22, 2007).

Day 114. The EZ Riders are training like maniacs! Gassho to each and every one of you! I am proud to wear the blue and yellow.

Late one summer over twenty-five years ago (circa 1982 B.C. - Before Cycling) I was boogie boarding in the Pacific ocean. I was with my punk-rocker, wind-surfing, cowboy boyfriend. It was during our all-things-water phase. We were wild things. We spent the majority of our time either sailing our 16-foot Hobie Cat out of Long Beach Harbor or jumping waves on our windsurfers (that was when I loved the wind rather than loathed it). I was less experienced on the boogie-board, but after watching the punk-rocker and his four brothers skimming along the frothy top of some decent-sized waves, I figured, "How hard can it be?"

I velcroed the strap tightly around my ankle and headed out through the surf. Carefully, I mimicked the boys as they ducked their heads and dipped the tips of their boogie boards down and through the base of the waves as we paddled out to the big stuff. A long way from shore, we turned around, sat on the board with our legs dangling down like fleshy shark bait, and waited. I didn't know a thing about wave watching; I just figured I would do what those experienced California dudes did. It wasn't long before a monster wall of water loomed just over our shoulders. "Go!" they shouted in unison, and we flopped onto our bellies and paddled like mad.

Call it beginner's luck, but I shot up to the top of that cresting wave like a Hawaii poster girl. I felt a tremendous surge of power and speed as the swelling wave propelled me up and away with unfathomable force. The rush was intense; I can feel it to this day, and understand why surfers abandon their jobs and families to hang ten. I have no idea how to gauge wave height, but the view from the top of that monster is emblazoned in my memory. I could see up and down the entire beach, and remember thinking, "Is anybody watching me catch the ride of a lifetime?" The sandy shore was hurtling toward me faster than I could comprehend, but at the last second it dawned on me, "How do I get off this thing!?"

At that point, my beginner's luck ran out. In a spectacular error of timing and inexperience, that gigantic wave broke right over my head with a thunderous crash. What felt like a million tons of water thrust me down, down, down, and pinned me with crushing brutality to the ocean floor. It receded with equal velocity, sucking me away from shore with such force that I somersaulted backwards several times like an ocean bound tumbleweed. My helplessness was absolute; I was utterly at the mercy of the water. Oddly, a coherent thought process began to calculate how long I had been under water, and how much longer I could go without air. Strange that my mind alighted upon such practical matters.

The turbulence of the water abated, and I instinctively shot upward towards the surface. Bursting into sunlight, my lungs gulped air as I spat salt water and tried to focus my stinging eyes. I energetically tread water as I scanned a circle around me in search of the shoreline. Time had lost all meaning. It felt like I had been trapped under water for a week. Realistically it was more like under five, over three minutes. Time flies when you're bouncing along the ocean floor. I spotted the beach and began to swim towards it. Only then did the frightening possibility of another wave breaking on top of me cross my mind.

At that moment, I tucked my legs underneath me, put my feet down, and stood up. Almost twenty-eight years later, I still have no idea why it occurred to me to do that. Stunningly, hilariously, my feet had abruptly collided with the smooth sand of the ocean floor, and damned if I wasn't standing in about four feet of water. I cracked up. The boys and their punk-rocker mother were standing in the shallow surf, laughing and applauding my wave ride. Grinning triumphantly (and quickly adjusting my bikini), I waded out of the ocean and plunked down on the sand. My boogie board was still attached to my ankle. "What a ride!" I breathed. And it was.

I told a much briefer version of this story to a client today in the context of the possibility of grounding ourselves in the most turbulent of times. She laughed heartily at the image of me swimming frantically to shore, then realizing that I wasn't even in water over my head and could stand up and walk. We agreed that the story was a most excellent metaphor.

I knew I would write about it tonight. It is the perfect metaphor for the practice of zazen. With brute force, life can hurl turbulence and crushing blows that threaten to pin us to the bottom of despair. Our thoughts and opinions and attachments and preferences are like that sucking, receding wave attempting to drive us out to sea. Sitting zazen is putting our feet down and standing up. Waking up. Looking around and discovering that all that thrashing wasn't the least bit necessary. There was something firm beneath us all along.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc