[Buddhist] World Surf League Finals (8/25)

What is 'Buddhist' about the practice of surfing?

Get back on and ride the waves.

There are many ways in which surfing, which seems to have been "invented" in the Pacific -- in Peru and Polynesia, with important contributions from Buddhist Japan (which at that time included a cultural hold on what is now part of Hawaii in the Imperial USA), tracks with the best elements of Eastern philosophy.

That philosophy, distinct from Western philosophy we are all generally familiar with, is a syncretic blend of Buddhism, Zen, the Vedas, Hinduism, Taoism, Shinto, and indigenous shamanism. (British Californian Alan Watts explained it very well to Westerners).

• Mindfulness (fully absorbed in monotasking)
• Absorption (undistracted doing temporarily freed of discursive thinking)
• Letting go (non-clinging, as in "Let Go, Let God," with "God" understood to be Nature, the Universe, things just as they are at this moment, more Brahman than a brahma)
• Going with the flow rather than struggling against it (entering flow states familiar to poets, rappers, artists, and persons able to enter trance states at will)
• Skillful allowing and accepting rather than shoving, muscling, and efforting (radical acceptance as understood by Buddhist teacher and psychologist Tara Brach)
• Riding the wave (internally of emotions, externally tolerating and skillfully adapting to the "Eight Worldly Winds"):

Practicing at home in the Deep South, USA

Theravada Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg elaborates on the Taoist idea of “the ten thousand joys and the ten thousand sorrows.” Our lives are constantly changing, sometimes in the space of a minute. The Buddha taught that the “Eight Worldly Winds” are:

1. pleasure
2. and pain,
3. gain
4. and loss,
5. praise
6. and blame,
7. fame
8. and disrepute.

Taoism and the Tao Te Ching (Book of Changes)

They (and all things) are constantly arising and passing away, beyond our control. We suffer when we cling to pleasure, gain, praise, and fame or hold the expectation that they will always be present.

When instead we get pain, loss, blame, and disrepute, we feel that something is terribly wrong, or that we’ve done something wrong... More

• Well, what should we do when everything sucks? Surf.
• Whether that means ride the waves of life constantly coming at us like Eight Worldly Winds or vicissitudes or actually getting out on the water, waiting for the swells, and riding them back to sure with the practiced skills of balance, poise, allowing, persistence, and mindful awareness.

Lexus WSL Finals Fiji 2025 | World Surf League

Map shows Fiji cluster of islands in center

What to know: The paradise and power of Cloudbreak | Lexus WSL Finals Fiji. At the Lexus WSL Finals, the WSL Final 5 will face off at Cloudbreak, one of the most powerful lefts on Earth. It's a wave that demands total commitment and punishes hesitation. With a world title on the line, this is the ultimate test of talent, mental acumen, and pure surfing instinct. The stakes have never been higher, and there's no room for error. History will be ridden, and World Champions will be crowned: Paradise and power of Cloudbreak (WSL)

Where is Fiji?

Where in the world is Fiji? It is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean (between Hawaii and Australia). It rests about 1,300 miles (1,100 nautical miles or 2,000 kms) north-northeast of New Zealand.

Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about 110 are permanently inhabited—and more than 500 islets, amounting to a total land area of about 7,100 square miles (18,300 sq kms). The most outlying island group is Ono-i-Lau.

• DETAILS: Lexus WSL Finals Fiji 2025 | World Surf League

Mexico's Baja California in upper right, Fiji in center, Southeast Asia on left, Africa at far left

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About 87% of the total population live on the two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. About three-quarters of Fijians live on Viti Levu's coasts, either in the capital city of Suva, or in smaller urban centers such as Nadi (where tourism is the major local industry) or Lautoka (where the sugar-cane industry is dominant). The interior of Viti Levu is sparsely inhabited because of its terrain [13]. More

• WorldSurfLeague.com/events/2025
• VIDEO: 1,700-year-old city hidden beneath Pacific Ocean
• WSL 2025; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Balinese Buddhism in Bali, Indonesia

Ven. S. Dhammika (DM/BuddhaNet); Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The spirituality and unique character of religions in Indonesia (destination-asia.com)

Pura Tanah Temple, Bali, Indonesia  (Jos Dielis/dielis/flickr.com)

 

Buddha, Bali (Robert Scales/flickr)

Much attention has been given to how far west Buddhism extended in ancient times. 

 

The most westerly Buddhist monument [not that that marks how far it got, only how far it made such an impression that monuments were erected to it] that can be is the foundations of a large stupa [Buddhist burial mound and sacred reliquary] in the south east corner of the ancient citadel of Khiva in Turkmenistan [Central Asia, formerly Russia].

Small communities of Buddhists may have existed beyond this. But if they did, they would have been insignificant [too insignificant to erect permanent stone religious structures], isolated, and exceptional. We can say therefore that the outer edge of [early] Buddhism in the west was what is now eastern Iran [the seat of the Solar Dynasty mentioned in Rhys Davids' translation in "The Story of the Lineage" from Buddhist Birth-Stories: Jataka].

Undersea Bali, Buddha statues in the coral reef, Indonesia (Robert Scales/flickr.com)

 
But how far to the east did Buddhism spread its gentle and civilizing influence? [Did it get] to the outer islands of Indonesia, to Australia, or perhaps beyond? 

 

The Buddhist hero Satusoma (buddhanet.net)

In the 1920's a superb bronze bust of the Buddha was found on Sulawesi, one of the larger islands that make up Indonesia [a massive stretch of islands between India and Australia]. This is the eastern most point that any Buddhist antiquity has ever been found. 

 

There is, though, no evidence of an enduring Buddhist presence either on Sulawesi or beyond it -- no ruined temples or monasteries [hidden in the dense jungles as keep being discovered in Cambodia], no inscriptions, or references to it in the historical records. 

 

However, only a few hundred miles southwest of Sulawesi is the small island of Bali, where archeological, epigraphical, and literary evidence shows that Buddhism existed alongside Hinduism for about 700 years.

 

Buddha under the sea, Bali, Indonesia (Robert Scales)

Indian merchants first arrived in Bali in about 200 BCE, and it was probably these people who introduced Buddhism and Hinduism.
 
A Balinese work of uncertain date called the Naga-rakrtagama by a Buddhist monk lists all of the Buddhist temples in Bali, 26 altogether, and mentions that in 1275 King Kretanagara underwent a Tantric Buddhist initiation to protect his kingdom from an expected invasion by Kublai Khan.

Kublai Khan conquers Asia and goes overseas to keep going (pic2fly.com)

 

Trade routes to Indonesia and back

The island's history is scant until 1343, when it was conquered by and absorbed into the Majapahit Empire of Java-Sumatra. Hinduism and Buddhism both received state patronage, although the type of Buddhism that prevailed gradually became indistinguishable from Hinduism [such is the case around the world for Mahayana Buddhism].

A Javanese Buddhist work from about the 12th century contains this telling verse: "The one substance is called two, that is, the Buddha and Shiva. [Tantra is a merging of Shakti and Shiva, conflating Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism, particularly esoteric Vajrayana] They say they are different, but how can they be divided? Despite differences there is oneness."

Sanur, Bali (MickJim/flickr)

Clearly at the time these words were being composed, some Buddhists were struggling to maintain the uniqueness of the Dharma, while others were stressing its similarity with Hinduism [which metamorphosed to be much more similar to Buddhism under the Buddha's radical influence bringing the Vedas back to life and on the Brahmins of his day].

Eventually in both Java and Bali the integrators prevailed. Incidentally, the phrase "Despite differences there is oneness" (Bhineka tunggal ika) has been taken as the motto for the Republic of Indonesia. With the collapse of Mahapahit [Hindu empire] in 1515 and the ascendancy of Islam, Java's old intellectual and religious elite, including the last surviving Buddhist monastics and scholars, sought refuge in Bali.

My Trip to Bali

Traveling round the world (destination360.com)

In January 2004 I fulfilled a long-standing wish to visit the island that Nehru eulogized as "The Morning of the World." I planned to visit all the sights that other tourists like to see, but my main intention was to search out the traces of Buddhism and find out something about Bali's small [surviving] Buddhist community. My first stop was the Bali Museum in Dempasar, the capital of the island. More

• Destination Asia: Buddhism in Indonesia
• Suvarnadvipa: Persian sea trade, Indonesia, Kalki kings (W)
• Deep Anthropology: Notes on a Balinese cockfight
• Buddha at the Crossroads: Indonesian Buddhism
• Dhammacakratra: Theravada Buddhism, USA
• Dhammacakratra, Ontario, California (facebook)