Here is a full gallery with photos from my trip to The Mentawai Islands in June 2018 and Bali in May 2019
There were a few moments this year that made me ask myself “what the hell are you doing?” Why in the world did I invest hours of travel and hard-earned savings to voluntarily ride lumps of water that were detonating over razor sharp coral heads?
Placing myself in these precarious situations should have gone against every survival instinct, and the fear of potential carnage should have sent me scurrying for the safety of solid ground.
To give you an idea of what can go wrong in surfing, I have outlined a few of my more memorable predicaments from this year.
The first was at the very start of my adventures, in June 2018. I had traveled over 40 hours to Indonesia’s Mentawai Islands, where I was working as a medic and surf guide for a local resort.
The incident occurred when I fell on a wave, jammed my finger so hard into my favorite board that I damaged the board, and then resurfaced to a second wave that dragged my back across the reef.
As I sat in the boat, trying to breathe through the unrelenting pain of salt water and sunburn irritating my wounds, I started to reflect.
The thoughts continued 10 months later in Tahiti, after I found myself being pushed by a mass of whitewater into a fully-exposed shelf of live coral.
My favorite board, and ironically the same board as in the Mentawais, was flying along beside me. The two of us smashed into, and then over, the shelf together. By some miracle, I escaped with only a few scrapes. My board had taken the brunt of the impact. It was creased down the middle and had multiple chunks taken out of the bottom.
The last of these close encounters came in May, when I was in Bali. I was beyond exhausted and unhealthily dehydrated from surfing Uluwatu, for over 3 hours, under the blazing Indonesian sun.
The only way up the towering, rocky cliffs was through a cave. At high tide, the exit through this cave must be timed perfectly by navigating an unrelenting current that pulls along the cliffs at rates faster than anyone can paddle. To add to the excitement, waves regularly smash into the cliff side, sending spray 10-20 feet in the air.
In my sunburnt, dizzy state, I managed to sneak my way into the cave, only after getting swept past the entrance once and being forced to do an entire paddle back up the point to ride down with the current again.
In all three of these situations, trained instincts, a quick reaction time, and a lot of luck saved me from anything catastrophic, but things could have easily ended much worse.
So why was I willing to partake in such a risky activity? It would be much safer and easier to get the same workout in a pool.
I was clearly missing something.
The answer to my questions came a few weeks later, when Andrew convinced me to start an online meditation course. I’ll admit, I was a little skeptical at first, but I trusted in Andrew’s consistent enthusiasm around his newfound understandings.
Within the first few lessons of the course, I quickly learned how out of control my mind was. Under the guidance of closed eyes and a steady posture, the wandering nature of the mind became readily apparent. Thoughts disappeared as quickly as they appeared, and no matter how much I tried to focus on the sensation of breathing, my consciousness would inevitably fall victim to a stream of unending thoughts.
This realization began to consume me, and frustrate me, to no end. As I went about my day-to-day life, I began to recognize how much time I spent planning for things that were yet to happen, or reminiscing on things that already happened, and dreaming of things I wanted to happen. All the while, some of the best times of my life were rolling by, and my mind wasn’t there to realize it.
Why could I not fully involve my mind in the moment?
If you take the time to observe children, you’ll see they do a much better job than adults. Without the brain development necessary for higher-level thinking, planning, and processing, children are free to immerse their consciousness in their immediate surroundings. By engaging more fully in each moment, children aren’t as easily consumed by stresses of upcoming events, and they are more quick to let go of lingering emotions from the past.
One of the main goals in meditation is to gain this ability that comes so naturally to children, so when we don’t need to plan, process, and analyze, we can truly engage with what is going on around us.
When I think back about times where I was fully in tune with my senses, without judgement or worry about the past or future, those were the best times in my entire life.
Whether I was entranced by the roaring crowd and thumping bass at a concert, or completely engaged in deep discussions with friends, or feeling the water whiz under my feet as I glide down a wave, they all have the same underlying connection; I was completely and unequivocally living in the present.
Those brief, fleeting moments are so rewarding and addictive that they alone are what drive me over the edge of waves and into a situation where my mind can’t help but focus on its surroundings. For me, surfing is a way to feel the same bliss that is sought out in meditation.
I don’t think I’m the only one who feels that way. The many participants in other adrenaline-infused activities are likely seeking out the same internal reward, even if they aren’t aware of exactly why they are doing so.
After finally understanding my motivation to surf, I’ve started looking for other aspects of my life, where I find a similar focus on the present. Yoga requires a deep level of attentiveness at times, as does kitesurfing, and so too does a conversation where both parties are actively listening to one another.
But once you become aware of where your attention is placed throughout the day, you will begin to notice little snippets in time where your attention is kept solely in the present. Savor those moments. See how long you can make them last, and you just might surprise yourself with how incredibly rewarding such a simple shift in consciousness can be.
-Chris Buchanan