Awhile back, a couple of us drove up to Santa Monica to see a screening of the film Maya and the Wave. Maya Gabeira is a big wave surfer. One of only a few female big wave surfers rising 50-80 feet above the sea on the world's largest waves. In the 2019-2020 Nazaré big wave surfing season, she surfed the largest wave of anyone, men and women. Did you hear about it? At the time, I didn't. A woman beating out all the men in any competition should have been the biggest sports story of the year, and I didn't hear about it. The wave was 73.5 feet high, a record for her, the biggest of the year, and a world-record for women. What a feeling of absolute freedom that must be! To rise that far above the ocean. To face your fear and fly. The documentary told some of Maya's story. Her hard work and determination to get good in the first place in a male-dominated field. Her recovery from a heart-wrenching wipe out at Nazaré that nearly killed her in 2013. And how she had to stand up to the World Surf League's patriarchal structure that didn't want to acknowledge her record-setting wave. All the big wave surfers at Nazaré have to navigate the largest waves in the world, extensive safety protocols, arduous training regimens, and complex relationships with sponsors. The women must add to their to do lists: navigating the men.
This makes me so angry.
A large part of watching Maya and the Wave for me is dealing with my own continuing rage around this topic. Why are women given less respect and fewer resources in any endeavor simply because they are women? Why is my viewing of her epic story clouded by injustice? I am so happy that there is a movie like this for aspiring surfer girls to watch – one that paints a picture of a woman’s grit, determination, failure, and recovery like the thousand similar stories I have of men doing the same things. I am also wary – what lessons will aspiring surfer girls take from this film? Will they be inspired by Maya’s skill and courage or discouraged by the many additional barriers she had to endure to do the same thing as the men? Including, for example, near the beginning of Maya's story, the movie discusses the rumors she had to deal with about sleeping with her tow partner. That the big-time big wave surfer she partnered with was only helping her because he was having sex with her. What is a ten year old aspiring surfer girl supposed to do with that?
Rage.
It struck me that Maya went through two huge experiences of trauma. The first was almost getting killed by a wave. The physical harm and psychological aftermath of the wipe out took her years to overcome. She fought an epic path to surfing again: multiple surgeries and years of physical therapy. She rose above the limits of her body. The psychological recovery from this experience was harder to bear. "In the beginning came the physical trauma, now is the trauma of the soul," said her mother in the movie when the PTSD kicked in for Maya. She overcame this as well. Her spirit indomitable, she worked her way back to riding big waves: one in 2018 was 68 feet high and set a record for women at the time, still on the top ten list of all time biggest waves ever surfed by anyone. Heroic. A different trauma of the soul hit her next.
The second experience of trauma came from the harm of sexism and patriarchy, being erased by her male peers in surfing — male peers who perhaps didn’t think of her as a peer and thus didn’t acknowledge her resilience and accomplishment. In 2020, the WSL didn’t acknowledge her record-setting 73.5 foot wave. It was not one of the waves highlighted at the end of season awards ceremony -- wasn't even shown in the highlight reel. In an interview with Forbes, the director and producer of the film, Stephanie Johnes, said, “I think it was Maya's skill and perseverance that threatened some guys' own sense of masculinity. If a pretty girl can surf a 70-foot wave, it must not be the most macho thing in the world. Some of them are really counting on that [activity] to prove their manhood, how tough they are.” As Maya said, “No one can be braver than them.”
I cannot imagine her rage. A 73.5 foot high wave of rage.
Any time our expectations for living and interacting with others are disrupted in a negative way, it can be a trauma; it’s harm. Harm is disorienting. We have to grieve, readjust. Cope. Accommodate or assimilate the new information from the failed expectation that people are basically decent and the height of a wave is the same no matter who rides it. While physical challenges are incredibly difficult to endure, they are clear and impersonal: a body is broken from a massive wave; surgery and physical therapy are the routes to heroic recovery. The psychological harms are harder to overcome.
What do you do when the humans around you cannot be trusted to see the same reality that you see? When they seem out to harm you, limit you, erase you and your accomplishment? Do not see your hours in the water as the same kind of time as a man’s hours in the water? Do not see your work in recovery as resilient and brave as a man’s work in recovery? See a pink surfboard on a 73.5 foot wave and dismiss it? Smirk. She appealed to the men in charge of the WSL directly to acknowledge her accomplishment and was ignored, so she went elsewhere. Maya reached out to social media for recognition and she got it. People who could see the same things she saw stood with her and then things changed. She had people on her side. She wasn't fighting alone.
Due to Maya's persistence and this public pressure, the WSL and the Guinness Book of World Records finally acknowledged her epic ride. Maya has continued to advocate for equal respect for women big wave surfers. There will always be those who are too small themselves to recognize the size of her accomplishment, but she was enlarged by the experience. She took her rage, rode it out, and did something positive with it for the sake of all the women who will surf after her – all of the little girls who responded to her plea on social media to be recognized. I am fascinated by how people transform their rage into good and this story prompted a huge reflection around anger for me. How to take my anger and transform it? Working with the Zen precept around anger is helping.
Before I talk precepts, one note. Keep in mind that Zen is always operating on at least two levels. On one level, the relative, everyday kind of level, we have to protect our bodies and our personhood. If we do not feel safe internally, then nothing else can happen. This is duality. The ordinary world of black/white, yes/no, us/them. Separation. On the other level, the absolute or transcendent level, we are all one. There is no separation between people (or anything) and we are always safe. This is the non-dual. This is the absolute level of no self or non-self, the interconnection and oneness of all things. An African proverb says, "When there are no enemies within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you." Taking the precept on the absolute level seems to leave one open to harm, but this isn’t the case. We protect ourselves in the everyday, even as we attempt to rise above it.
It's a both/and situation. One level is duality, and we live every day as a self in duality on the physical plane of existence. The other level is non-dual and we also live every day as no self in the spiritual plane of existence, but we have to have some awareness, done some work, in order to think that way, to realize it. I’m reminded of a description of the symbolism of the Christian cross I once heard. The horizontal bar of the cross is our everyday life – imagine an arrow sticking out of the right end of the horizontal crossbar – it shows our passage through time. The vertical bar bisects that passage through time – imagine an arrow pointing upward -- symbolizing that at every moment, we have an opportunity to see the sacred in everyday life. Rise above. We can lift up every moment to see the beauty and interconnection of our world. In this way, non-duality and the sacred have a lot in common.
My work this past year has been about separating from separateness: trying to face all of things within me that cause me to separate from that oneness. Facing feelings of loneliness, worthlessness, perceived danger, anxiety -- all of the things in my head, all of my demons, that cause me to separate myself from the world. I've faced a lot of them and can be a part of the world more often, more authentically, and more directly. I can feel a sense of oneness with all things more often.
The precepts are part of the ethical teachings of Buddhism that help us work with our defenses, our limits, in order to think and act more from the non-dual level. There are various lists of precepts: some traditions have 16 precepts, some have 10, some only 5 that they focus on. In some traditions of Buddhism, the precepts are simply a set of rules for living in community, kind of like the Ten Commandments in Christianity. In the Zen tradition, the precepts are much more. The Zen practice of working with the precepts is a way to examine ourselves and our limitations, how we tend to foster our own separation or duality in very specific ways.
Zen Buddhists are always concerned with Oneness – realizing that we are all interconnected, none of us and no part of us exists on our own, as a separate self: the ideas of “no self” or “non-self" and dependent origination working together to show the vast web of interdependence we exist within. We only exist in relationship to each other and the world, so there is no actual separation or individual self when you really get into it. So anything that reinforces our individual sense of a separate self needs to be investigated in an attempt to, frankly, get over ourselves and connect more deeply with the oneness of all things, including each other. Anger is one of those things that can separate. It's divisive. Anger pointed at the self and anger pointed outward is often destructive and leads to harm.
According to Nancy Mujo Baker in Opening to Oneness, “Working with any of the precepts is not about engaging the superego—namely, our inner critic. In a sense, of course, the Zen precepts are moral principles, but they aren’t ‘out there,’ separate from me to be held up as standards with which I can beat myself up whenever I fall short—or, even worse, beat up others when they fall short. Nor are they moral straightjackets to be used simply to control my behavior or anyone else’s. They are, instead, what the realized person does naturally. As Bodhidharma puts it, ‘Self-nature is inconceivably wondrous. In the Dharma of no self, not postulating self is called the Precept of Refraining from Anger.’” In Zen, the precept I'm working with today is also called Non-being Angry.
Baker writes that we want to get to know anger itself. “Getting to know it means being curious about it, not having any judgements about it, and compassionately allowing it.” In the Buddhist context, “allowing” means to see it – to allow the feeling of it in my mind and body and to become aware of it, not suppress it or ignore the feeling. It does not mean to allow myself to punch somebody (perhaps unfortunately). She says, “Obviously, suppressing anger is a way of avoiding getting to know it, but interestingly, so is acting out the anger.” Acting on anger is getting rid of it quickly. When we compassionately allow, really sit with it without acting on it one way or another, we really feel it and can investigate it.
Not postulating: postulating means to claim something. So when anger is present, we are asserting our separate selves in a way that says “I am more important than you are,” “I am important,” or even simply, “I am.” When someone or something threatens my person and/or anything associated with me or mine, then I get angry. I get angry when a boundary is crossed and I feel fear around my own harm. I get angry to muster the courage to defend what's mine. There's power in anger. I also get angry at injustice when I see others being hurt. There is anger that reinforces the self and increases separation and living from duality, and anger that reinforces oneness and increases awareness of interconnection and our living from non-duality. She continues, “When there is no self, no self-territory to defend or construct, then there is no anger. But can there be an anger that does not come from a postulated self, an anger that is not defensive? Yes, of course.”
Baker writes, “[There] are the quick, five-second kinds of anger. When the five seconds are up, it’s over. One might say there is a kind of cleanness, clarity, and purity to this kind of anger. But there is also an anger that stays and stays—cleanly, clearly, and purely—until something that needs to be remedied is actually remedied.” Like a whistleblower fighting an amoral system or a climate activist. So what kind of anger was Maya working with?
At two different times in her career after notable wipe outs at Teahupo’o and Nazaré, Maya received public criticism from two male giants in the big wave surfing community, Laird Hamilton and Kelly Slater. The movie is about Nazaré, but she also had a big wipe out at Teahupo’o early in her career. These are perhaps the two most dangerous waves to surf in the world. Experts only. The criticism from these men included comments that Maya was unprepared, was putting others and herself in danger, and should stop trying to surf big waves. Maya agreed with their criticism that she was unprepared, though was hurt by the timing of that criticism. At the time of those wipe outs, she was inadequately prepared, by her own admission. But instead of offering feedback for her continued improvement and participation, intended to encourage her growth, they offered criticism -- some of it publicly -- and told her to stop. I find that curious.
Maya also got really angry when her wave went unacknowledged -- was erased -- by the WSL.
Anger that reinforces the self in the surfing context would be like Laird and Kelly criticizing Maya and telling her to stop. Criticism could be given as feedback to help her grow, but they wanted to cut her off. She Should Stop Surfing. From my outside judgement, that’s two men protecting something within themselves; restricting another person's dream because they felt threatened. Anger that reinforces oneness would be like if Laird and Kelly really were worried that Maya was endangering herself and others. Getting angry out of concern for others is a way to drive people to think about the larger context of their actions. To get out of their own heads.
Maya’s anger served oneness. She got angry at the injustice of her wave being erased. Initially, her anger may have been self-focused: her wave got erased and she was pissed off. However, her anger served a larger purpose: to point out unfairness, to get the men out of their own heads. Then, at great personal sacrifice, she worked for a just outcome that would benefit female surfers everywhere. It took a lot of energy to fight that fight -- energy she could have channeled into improving her surfing. Instead, she used some of her energy to bring attention to the injustice and tried to change the rules that prevented her from getting recognized. She took on the patriarchal structure of the WSL and now waves are starting to be measured in a standardized way. She included other women on her 73.5 foot wave of anger, lifting us all up.
Like Maya, I think my personal experiences of anger were initially self-focused. I came back into therapy because I was getting angry a lot at work and was not letting go of my anger from a previous job. It was neither quick nor clean. I was stewing in it and I didn't know why -- what was the source? I needed some perspective and help figuring it out. The more I realize about my childhood, the more I realize that my anger is operating on both levels. At one level, I didn’t feel safe. I was in a home that neglected my emotional needs, but because I was surrounded by friends who had even more harmful family situations, I didn't see my own hurt. It has taken this long to really see it. My anger was my little inner self crying out to be recognized, unerased.
At another level, I was hurt and my friends were hurt in part because of sexism, in part due to societal constraints around families and telling the truth. We had mothers who couldn't be entirely who they wanted to be, and perhaps were in situations as mothers because they didn't have the choice not to be. Fathers could opt out without consequence, but mothers couldn't. It is also never easy to deal with children in homes that are harmful. If neighbors, friends, or school personnel did know of the harm that was happening to my friends, then nothing was done about it -- what options were there? Nothing good. I have been angry at the personal unfairness of it all, but more so, the pain of unjust limitations, of someone else cutting me or women in general down to size due to patriarchal ego complications. Women didn't have any power. It wasn't fair. As children in harmful situations, we had another level of powerlessness. Maya's situation points a finger at that powerlessness -- that someone else can simply erase what took years to achieve. Can erase you without consequence, because they have all the power.
Sifting through layers and layers of my own hurt over these many months has allowed me to get in touch with fear that sits right below the anger. Why did this harm happen to us? Why didn't anyone help us? Anger is a way to muster power; it's big energy. I think I respond with anger when I feel powerless. My anger was focused inward -- self-blame was a way I could assert control. It's amazing to me how much I have intellectualized my feelings away and denied the absolute powerlessness of my childhood. It's all coming back now. Big waves. Finally feeling fully the powerlessness I felt as a child, I had to ride a big emotional wave of my own recently with respect to that fear and I wiped out too. It was too big for me to handle alone. Like Maya, I reached out to my safety team for help. Both BTG and the girls have helped me get grounded again after recognizing that trauma. The process of recovery continues. Any story that taps that powerlessness really gets me deep down.
I have had the reinforcing oneness kind of anger in another way as well. Anger that people hurt one another constantly; that there is so much hurt in the world and not enough people seem to be helping. I saw my friends getting really harmed, but no one was stepping up to help. I think much of my job anger echoed my childhood hurt and fear, “Why aren’t we helping more?” or “Why isn’t anyone helping us more?” For the first time, I am feeling the weight of that hurt – not just knowing it intellectually and reacting blindly to it, but really seeing it, understanding it, and feeling the density and volume of hurt in the world. It's overwhelming. After my own personally focused anger was acknowledged, then I am free to work with the other kind of anger in a more positive way. It might fuel my ability to reach out to help others -- but not by itself. Jack Kornfield wrote, "And then, when we look deeply, often under the anger—which is a protection of ourselves and others—is the profound truth that we really care. When we feel our care, it gives rise to compassion, a heartfelt sense of our shared connection."
Much of this blog is coming to the awareness that anger and compassion, anger and forgiveness, can exist simultaneously -- on one level, need to exist simultaneously. From Potts, I learned that anger preserves the feeling of the injustice and may prevent harm from occurring again. We fight to remedy a wrong. Anger is energy, a life-force kind of energy, and that kind of energy can serve a very important function, according to Baker. I am reminded of the Audre Lord quote from her famous essay The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism, “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”
Kornfield writes that anger alone won't do it. "Sometimes we can respond to the fear or pain with a quiet, strong, or simply tender presence. Sometimes we will also need to respond actively, to get up, shout out the truth, march, protest, do whatever is necessary to protect our life and the lives of others. The great exemplars of non-violence such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were strategic and skilled in this way. They rallied people, used the courts, broke the law, blocked the way, negotiated, moved forward and back, found allies, and used money, power, shame, speeches, and politics all to stand up for what was right. But they did not act out of hate and violence. They did it out of love."
Anger without love and compassion only further separates us. "Hurt people hurt other people." BTG said that the Buddha taught that "the world is subsumed in suffering." It is the First Noble Truth. Everyone is hurt and suffering, and that hurt and suffering is often passed on. Because I know that all hurt is born from other hurt, I can have compassion for everyone. My parents did not know how to meet my emotional needs, because their needs were not met either. I had friends growing up who were physically and sexually abused. It is beyond awful to experience that harm. It is also awful to commit that harm. What happened to their parents to make them capable of committing such harm? It's all awful and we all need compassion.
Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, "When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending." At first, I recoiled at this suggestion -- how can I give compassion to those who have harmed others? I'm reminded of James Baldwin's quote, "I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain." Because I was in pain, I was still attached to dishing out pain. Punishment, not love, was the answer to harm.
Pema Chodron wrote, “When you connect with your own suffering, reflect that countless beings at this very moment are feeling exactly what you feel. Their story line is different, but the feeling of pain is the same... you begin to realize that self and other are not actually different.” Baldwin wrote, "The things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive. Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves can we understand them in other people." Pema again, “Only to the degree that we’ve gotten to know our personal pain, only to the degree that we’ve related with pain at all, will we be fearless enough, brave enough, and enough of a warrior to be willing to feel the pain of others. To that degree we will be able to take on the pain of others because we will have discovered that their pain and our own pain are not different.” Compassion is the key to rising above and living in that non-dual state of non-self, interconnected. One.
Now, returning to that note about the non-dual level of existence, I don't invite everyone who has harmed me over to dinner. Forgiveness and compassion do not mean reconciliation. I keep my boundaries, keep myself safe. I am wrapped in that concern for others -- I am worth protecting, too. Forgiving harm, having compassion for the one who harms, doesn't mean I invite those people into my life. I let this stuff go for me -- keeping the flame of anger alight within me only burns me. If my work with the precepts is having an effect, then I simply don't have the stomach for anger and hate anymore. I'm finding this is true. The more I work with my own issues, the more I only want to experience kindness and compassion -- from within me going out to the world and from the world coming into me. The rest feels like poison. Unlike Maya's epic ride, this is perhaps a softer victory, rising above the anger to love everybody, no matter what. Compassion no matter what. Maybe one day, I will not even need the boundaries. But that's not now, not yet.
These examples from the big wave surfing controversy have helped me further work out my relationship with anger. Anger works in lots of ways: it is capable of reinforcing both separation and oneness, depending on who is wielding it and their level of awareness. These examples show how anger operates to separate us – from each other and from our natural flourishing in this world -- and how it can help us come together as one healing community. However, anger can only serve that important purpose of reinforcing oneness if we work with it. Roshi Joan Halifax wrote, "Our Buddhist precepts are about transforming the mind of poverty that has made us feel that we are less than who we really are and that others are less than who they are. We so often live in such a terrible state of dissatisfaction and project this onto the world. We have underestimated the human spirit."
The human spirit is always working toward liberation -- liberation from our selves, the confining nature of our own egos. Stuck in anger, we are made small, limited, confined to our individual bodies, defensive. We cannot stay with anger alone; this is the purpose behind having a precept around non-being angry. We have to add compassion and concern for others to it. We have to get bigger, rise above. We have to come from love, not hate. Maya rose above a monster wave; she transformed her suffering into wisdom and inclusion, rose above the limitations of her body and her peers and society as a whole. From the sayings of the Buddha, "In this world, hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed. This is the ancient and eternal law.” Through thinking of others and fighting for justice, Maya enlarged herself and took us with her, showing us we can all ride those big waves. Loving, no matter what.
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