A tropical storm had been approaching out at sea. We hunkered down that night at the next caravan park. It turned out to be one of the most violent storms I have ever experienced. The night air was filled with consistent flashes of brilliant forked lightning, booming and crackling as the storm approached us. It raged all night and by morning it was gone.
All that is, except the swell. We headed back down the coast but this time we stopped off at many of the breaks around the boarder between Queensland and New South Wales. Surfers Paradise, Burleigh Heads, Currumbin, Kirra, Snapper Rocks, Rainbow Bay, Duranbah...they were all GOING OFF!!!
There was no wind and it was very hot. It was a holiday period and the area was buzzing with tourists which made parking very difficult for a vehicle of our size.
But it was worth it. Four to six feet at most beaches. In 1987 the breaks were not as crowded as they often are today, but even so there were a lot of locals out in the water. Even the Pro's were out. We surfed until we could surf no more and then we went out again. It was a surfers dream...
I didn’t know it at the time, but I would eventually return here, and spend the best five years of my surfing life just soaking it up. (To be chronicled in my next Blog!)
The beaches on the East Coast, like many around Australia are beautiful. Pearly white glistening sand. When you paddle out in off shore conditions the surface of the water is like glass. As you paddle you can look down onto the white sandy bottom and see the fish swimming below you. When you catch a wave and ride it its like being in an airplane. As the water is so totally clear its often impossible to see the surface and this gives the impression of flying over a mystical landscape.
A 300 meter ride is not uncommon in such ideal conditions, which is often. The sweep at some breaks can be difficult though and sometimes, like at Kirra, you can spend all your time paddling to just try and stay positioned in the line up. Mostly on those days you only have to catch one wave though and it can be the ride of your life.
Peak experiences in life are what all surfers live for and this brings me right back to the mundane. The mundane is exactly that, mundane, largely because it goes unconsidered. Its Unconsidered simply because we grow up with it. We have seen it, or so we think…
This is where it all begins, this “sea of illusion” as Buddhism puts it. Conventional reality has us looking in a different direction, a direction away from the mundane life. What if the mundane was actually KEY? Illusion, caused by the fact that we had looked so hard and long at it that we had become blind to its hidden secrets? As if it was a wall blocking us from seeing a hidden dimension? As I’ve repeatedly said in past posts, nothing is actually what it seems…
Humans have labeled everything, grown up with those labels, and then proceeded to ignored them. The mundane is really just a form of ignorance.
So the words “Mundane” and “Ignorance” go hand in hand. The very failure to see this is what fuels the “sea of Illusion.” What has all this conceptualizing been based on? Buddhism calls it a (shifting) sea, for a reason. Is it any wonder now that what we are witnessing is “Conventional Reality” drifting apart?
Surfers are free spirits. Touched by natures mysterious secrets. We are used to shifting seas, currents of change, uncertainty, unpredictability and unstable conditions. These parallel secrets also lie hidden deep within the mundane life.
I say Don't stop looking. Where there is one secret there are many…
We are all here to learn.
Next post: Blood Bath!
