Bad Bunny, Surfing, and the Practice of Ease

Hi Friends,

This whole month we've been asking how to find clarity in the middle of motion - when the world keeps moving and the storms keep storming and you can’t wait for perfect conditions because they’re not coming. The answer, it turns out, is to root yourself in ease. Being anchored enough that the waves don’t take you under, and loose enough to move with spontaneity.

Mi novio Bad Bunny’s halftime show this week was a masterclass in the power of centered ease: the whole Americas on one stage, moving from joy instead of fear. Playful presence as resistance.

Our communities need that from us right now. We can’t show up rigid and afraid and running on fumes and expect to change the world. When we connect to deep ease, the work that’s ours to do flows from us like a dance.

This week I’m sharing a practice that can help cultivate this quality of mind. It’s a version of shamatha (calm abiding) that is a total surfing metaphor. 🌊

I got the idea while sitting on the beach in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, watching Ticos and Jamaicans and expats of all kinds surf the break at Salsa Brava. What struck me was how similar it is to meditation. Rigidity doesn’t work out there. Perfectionism doesn’t work. Ruminating on the previous moment while the next wave is coming at you does not work. You gotta stay loose to stay on the board.

Meditation is exactly the same. No matter if you’re doing it for mental health or for full enlightenment, it has to flow from relaxation. Often we approach meditation as if the goal is to force our minds into stillness, to stop thoughts, achieve some kind of artificial quiet. But thoughts don’t stop. The sea spray keeps coming. Our job is to find an easy, stable mind in the middle of it. To surf it with resilient joy.

Relaxed attention gives rise to stable attention. And stability, in turn, gives rise to clarity. That’s how space opens up between stimulus and response. And that’s the space in which we dance and heal and find each other again.

1. Relaxation - Start with full body awareness, attention filling every corner. It’s like being boob-deep in the ocean, just getting acquainted with the water, the weather, your own body.

2. Stability - Attention gathers gently at the belly, where breath moves up and down. This is like sitting on the board and bobbing gently - there’s a little more motion, you’re a little more focused, and learning to stay.

3. Clarity - Now we turn attention to the space of mind itself, to whatever thoughts, images and feelings are arising without getting caught in them. This is like riding the surf while spray whips your face. Your mental weather whips past and we are vividly aware, centered, even while the whole world moves.

Pop in your headphones and ride 🏄 Lemme know how it goes!

❤️ Tash