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Snowboarding to Nirvana Also by the Author Snowboarding to Nirvana Also by the Author BOOKS Lifetimes: True Accounts of Reincarnation (1979) Total Relaxation: The Complete Program for Overcoming Stress, Tension, Worry, and Fatigue (1980) Surfing the Himalayas: A Spiritual Adventure (1995) MUSIC Enlightenment (1994) Canyons of Light (1996) Surfing the Himalayas (1996) Ecologie (1996) Cayman Blue (1997) WEB SITES www.himalaya.com www.zazen.com www.fredericklenz.com www.vayuweb.com FREDERICK LENZ Snowboarding to Nirvana St. Martin’s Press NEW YORK SNOWBOARDING TO NIRVANA. Copyright © 1997 by Frederick Lenz. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010. Design by Jennifer Ann Daddio Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lenz, Frederick. Snowboarding to Nirvana : a novel / Frederick Lenz p. cm. ISBN 0-312-15293-0 I. Title. PS3562.E496S65 1997 813’.54—dc21 First Edition: March 1997 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Vayu Acknowledgments I would like to thank my agent, Nicholas Ellison, for his initial belief in the Surfing the Himalayas trilogy; my editor at St. Martin’s Press, James Fitzgerald, for his continued support and good sense of humor; Louis Simpson, Ph.D., who taught me that critical method and poetry are not at odds with each other; Vayu the dog, my constant companion, to whom this book is dedicated; Master Fwap, the Oracle of Nepal, and all of the extraordinary Buddhist, Hindu, and Taoist masters I have had the opportunity to study with. In addition I would like to thank my martial arts and scuba diving instructors for teaching me the Tao of high-performance athletics, and all of the other wonderful teachers I have had throughout the course of my life who have opened the doorways for me to the worlds of music, higher mathematics, computer science, and a myriad of other subjects. INTRODUCTION I was in one of the most beautiful places in all the world, the Himalayan mountains. Several months before, in my endless quest for perfect snow, I had left my home in America and traveled by plane to Nepal with my two snowboards, to have the ultimate experience in snowboarding. Shortly after arriving in Nepal, I was fortuitously met and befriended by an aged Tibetan Buddhist monk, a Master Fwap Sam-Dup, of the Rae Chorze-Fwaz Order of Tantric Buddhist Enlightenment. After an initial encounter and further conversations with Master Fwap, I spent several months traveling through the Himalayas with him, visiting Buddhist monasteries and places of power. During our first weeks of traveling together, Master Fwap explained some of the basic concepts of Tantric Buddhist yoga and showed me how to apply those concepts to my snowboarding. He also allowed me to witness him perform a number of what I can only describe as “miracles,” which defied all the laws of physics that I had been taught in the American schools I had attended. I have written about my initial travels and conversations with Master Fwap, which constituted my initiation into Buddhist yoga and the metaphysics of snowboarding, in my previous book, Surfing the Himalayas. In the following pages I describe the second cycle of Master Fwap’s Tantric Buddhist teachings and also some of the more advanced snowboarding techniques that Master Fwap revealed to me, as we roamed deeper and deeper into the more remote areas of the Himalayas. I have taken the liberty of transforming these accounts—even though they are based on real-life occurrences—into a work of fiction. In transforming my actual experiences into fiction and to make this book both more enjoyable and informative for you to read, I have in some instances altered time periods, shortened trekking experiences, and made other chronological and content changes. —Rama-Frederick Lenz, Ph.D. PART ONE The Web of Life I OUT ON A PEAK! It was late afternoon in the Himalayas. I was standing on top of a remote mountain peak in northern Nepal. As I watched from my sixteen-thousand-foot vantage point, the sun momentarily ducked behind a gray-and-white cloud mass that hovered directly over the crest of some jagged mountains to the west. As if triggered by the sun’s sudden disappearance, a freezing, icy mountain breeze from the north assaulted the front of my body. Hurriedly, I zipped up my Gore-Tex down ski parka, rapidly pulled its hood up and over the top of my head, tugged on its straps, and secured it, firm and snug, around my freezing face. The cold, stinging wind continued to rise as the sun moved swiftly on its ever- westward course. As I watched in awe, the color of the sky began to change from a light Nepalese blue into a soft, pastel rose and lavender tinged with deep purple and white streaks. Standing alone, on an unnamed snow- and ice-covered peak, watching the everlasting montage of colors that filled the skies above me, I wished silently that I could remain in the breathtaking beauty of that time and place forever. But the rapidly rising icy wind, combined with the plummeting temperature, gave me no choice but to snowboard immediately down the mountainside or freeze to death, alone, in the oncoming Himalayan night. My jet-black snowboard lay on the ground several yards ahead of me. I was about to mount my board and begin to snowsurf down the mountain—when suddenly I had a strong feeling that someone was standing directly behind me. I quickly gave a nervous glance over my shoulder, but to my surprise no one was there! I was completely alone, out on a peak, in the late-afternoon snow. Laughing out loud at the absurdity of the idea that someone else might be out on that same remote Himalayan peak, I turned back and looked at my snowboard...and yet, the strange feeling that I was being watched persisted. Just as I was about to mount my snowboard, I heard a strong male voice call out my name from behind me. My stomach knotted. Reflexively, I swiveled around on the heels of my snowboarding boots to see who was there. Much to my dismay, there was no one behind me at all! I was still completely alone at sixteen thousand feet. I immediately assumed that I must be seriously losing it. “Probably the altitude,” I muttered to myself. I quickly mounted my snowboard, hoping to get off the peak before my altitude-generated hallucinations worsened. As I snapped my snowboarding boots into their bindings, I heard the voice for a second time. “The dimensions! The dimensions! What has happened to the dimensions? 3 They are all disappearing!” I heard the voice say, in what I can only describe as an emotionally charged lament. Without bothering to look behind me for a third time, I quickly pushed off on my snowboard and began my run down the snow- and ice-covered mountainside. I felt better when I started to carve in and out of the deep Himalayan powder. I kept my turns tight and completely focused my mind on snowboarding, consciously pushing the sound of that plaintive voice out of my memory until I finished the end of my run on the granular snow at the bottom of the mountain. 4 2 ZEN AND THE ART OF SNOWBOARDING After an exhilarating ride down the mountain on my snowboard, I reached the bottom of the slope where—much to my surprise—I found Master Fwap waiting for me. He had a huge grin on his face! I carefully brought my snowboard to a halt a safe distance in front of him and shouted out in amazement, “Master Fwap, what are you doing here?” “Why, I’m waiting for you, of course,” he replied in a matter-of-fact tone. I hopped off my snowboard, removed my goggles, and stared at him. I was speechless. “You look well,” he remarked with a soft chuckle. “How have you been getting on with your snowboarding project?” Master Fwap was referring to an assignment he had given me when I had last seen him several weeks ago. At that time, he recommended that I evolve my snowboarding from a consumer sport into a Buddhist practice that he referred to as “mindfulness.” Master Fwap had told me that the Buddhist practice of mindfulness is perfectly suited to snowboarding, because it is a type of meditation that is accomplished while a person is physically active. The most critical part of mindfulness, he had carefully explained to me, is to be consciously aware—while snowboarding—that my snowboard and I were “one.” At the time I wasn’t particularly interested in learning how to meditate at all, let alone while snowboarding down some of the most difficult and treacherous slopes in the world, but Master Fwap had convinced me to try his mindfulness technique by promising that it would radically improve my snowboarding. “Okay, I guess,” I sheepishly replied to his question. “To tell you the truth, Master Fwap, I haven’t really practiced your technique very often. Most of the time when I’m snowboarding, I get so involved in what I am doing that I forget to visualize that I am the board.” “Do not be discouraged. It takes both time and practice to turn an activity like snowboarding into meditation. Be patient. No matter how difficult it may seem at first, keep visualizing that you and your snowboard are one and that you are both made of the same energy.” “But it’s so hard!” I complained.
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