Travel Diaries #15 - Peaks
Going to Japan for an extended binge of snowboarding, culture, enlightenment and anything else that would satisfy my travel cravings
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This is Part 3 of a story about a trip I took to Japan a couple of years ago.
For Part 1, click here.
For Part 2, click here.
transcendence (n) /trɑːnˈsɛnd(ə)ns,tranˈsɛnd(ə)ns/
- existence or experience beyond the normal or physical level.
"the possibility of spiritual transcendence in the modern world"
"The essentially self-transcendent quality of human existence renders man a being reaching out beyond himself.”
- Viktor Frankl
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Practitioners of extreme sports are known to be amongst the most adept at pursuing the direct path to their passions: rather than spending their lives doing things they’re ‘supposed’ to do and wishing they could fit in more time to live their bliss on evenings and at weekends, they follow their passions to the source – to the beach or to the mountains, or to wherever they must go – and shape their lives around it. Surfers are known for it, as are snowboarders and skiers. I learned the term ‘ski bum’ while I was living as a ski bum in Canada: it’s a name for a person whose life revolves around spending winters in the mountains, working (if they work) whatever job is at hand to fund their passion; working to live rather than living to work, and not usually getting a lot of financial reward for it as a consequence. Skiing is known as a rich person’s sport, though it is only so for those who do it in short bursts on expensive holidays; for those who pursue it as a lifestyle, it is very much a working class pursuit.
Living such a life allows the ski bum to focus on the most important thing in their lives: getting high. Not the artificial highs of drugs, but those natural highs that the world is abundant with in its natural form, which have been studied and formally described by psychologists and philosophers as ‘peak’ or ‘spiritual’ or ‘mystical’ experiences. In ancient times these experiences were no doubt a part of life to a far greater extent than they are now, as denoted by dates and festivals and rituals which last to this day. though they’ve been re-branded and re-purpose, their original use thought, or told, to be make-believe stuff for children.
Nowhere in my life had I felt these moments more deeply than while snowboarding, or at least that’s what I’d been telling myself for as long as I could remember. In years subsequent to the winter I spent knee-deep in these peak snowboarding experiences in BC, Canada, I’d felt fleeting glimpses of them in other pursuits: riding motorbikes in Vietnam, running, drinking Buckfast at music festivals – though none of them hit home quite like those early days snowboarding. Part of the transcendent potential of snowboarding is in the sport itself – in the way it facilitates in quite a fundamental way a progression of skill that makes you continually push beyond your limits, and in a way that physically just makes your body quite literally flow. The adrenaline rushes and general sense of fun help as well – reminders that play is not just for children (or Christmas), but for life. But there are also indirect facilitators of euphoria.
By default, it takes place in areas of great natural beauty – the most extreme and rugged mountains, when they’re covered in the most pristine and other-worldly of substances: snow. There is nothing quite as literally breath-taking as being at the summit of endless expanses of mountain ranges. To get to the best runs and lines you generally have to hike even further than the automated chairs will bring you, further taking your breath in a physical sense, as the altitude continues to gradually make itself felt. Putting in effort to find your lines – as surfers wait for the right wave to come, over periods of minutes, hours, months or even years – further ingrains the feeling of earning your thrills, the whole process becoming more important than simply a series of adrenaline and dopamine rushes. The sacrifice and resilience and patience required furthers the spiritual practice element of the sport.
Natural beauty is wonderful, but so too cultural artefacts and architecture are known to stop us in our tracks with senses of awe – think of the Sistine Chapel, much European architecture, enchanting traditional dance and musical rituals. Everyone has their own taste, shaped their lives for whatever reason, perhaps even innate from birth, a remnant from a past life. I’d had a fascination with Japan since I was quite young, and had always been drawn to not just visit there, but to live there. I’d long favoured such means of true immersion over fleeting holidays and trips to tourist traps, and felt that if I could only spend some time carving myself into the routine of a place, it might inspire these moments of transcendence from the very mundanities of daily life.
If I could combine the highs of snowboarding with some cultural highs I could perhaps fashion for myself some potent mega-dose of transcendent experiences: Snowboarding! In Japan! Day in, day out, a never-ending three month high, high up on mountain tops so high the only stop left is outer space itself. What could be a greater thrill? It would be my peak travel experience. I would never need to travel again. I would be exhausted from it. I’d spend a few months snowboarding by day and eating sushi and 7/11 snacks by night, learn a bit of Japanese from all the Japanese people around the place and marvel at the simplest of things like the size of cutlery or the shape of the corners of buildings, after which I’d be all thrilled out, fit for bed, and ready to settle back into a normal routine at home of some professional career, out the odd weekend, maybe do a bit of running on a fine evening. Life would be grand.
This is how I ended up in Hakuba, a small town in a flat valley Nagano prefecture surrounded by sheer mountains which contain ten or so ski resorts. I’d found a place to stay that offered free living in exchange for some light work around the place, got myself a work visa, quit my job working as a teacher in Vietnam, and moved to Japan. I was all set.
Except, when I got there, I hated it.
The heavy snowfalls that greeted my arrival soon dried up, and the local ski hill was small, icy and boring. Rather than being a rural haven of Japanese culture, the village I was staying in was more like an Australian theme park. I found some of the peaks I was chasing on the ski hills, but they were too rare to make up for the crushing monotony and darkness of the place. Rather than finding enlightenment, I got cold and depressed. I tried to have fun down the pub but felt out of place with all the shitfaced Aussies throwing darts at each other and pissing in the snow. I thought longingly of days in Canada that felt like they had transformed my life all those years ago, and wondered if it had just been a once-off phase.
I’d long gotten the feeling that I really wasn’t meant to be here.
What was I supposed to do now? At some point I got the notion to find somewhere to meditate, possibly during on my regular trips to the onsen overlooking the valley’s ski hills, which at this point looked better from a distance, and from a steaming hot bath. I could visit one of Japan’s plentiful temples and maybe absorb some of the atmosphere or magic or good vibes or whatever it is they have going on there. If I had used up all the peak experiences I could get from snowboarding, maybe I could find them elsewhere – there was still the whole country and culture of Japan I’d yet to even see, as I’d been hibernating in the dead cocoon of the resort (always horrible non-places) for so long.
Notions can grow legs quite quickly, and almost as soon as I’d thought of meditation as the answer to what I was looking for, I’d dived in head first and booked a ten day long silent meditation retreat at a Buddhist centre in the east of Japan. I’d never even meditated before – apart from that one time sitting on a rock on the edge of a lake in Vietnam, just a couple of months before. At the time it had seemed like it was the solution to everything, like my whole life had led me to that moment just to discover this secret of the universe. I swore I’d practice meditating every day for the rest of my life so I could attain this state in everything I did.
Naturally, I never bothered to do it again.
I thought snowboarding would be enough for me to find transcendence. Until it wasn’t. But at least I’d found out. Another thing ticked off the list, my mind free to let whatever the next notion was to rise into front and centre place, to see if it worked. I was either a child chasing a balloon or a scientific adventurer, following through on my notions just to know for sure whether they were real or not. Just like the notion to go to Japan in the first place. For whatever reason, this was all I wanted to do.
I packed my bags and took a bus to Kyoto.
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