ESSENCE OF THE TAO 33to stay at the center to teach yoga. Honestly, teaching had never crossed my
mind. I was happy just being a student. The prospect of teaching was excit-
ing. I was also terrified. I had never participated in a yoga teacher training
course, but yoga had become the love of my life. It was the thing that I was
most passionate about. So, I said yes.
Those days teaching yoga and meditation on Koh Lanta were some of the
happiest of my life. I was moving with the flow of the Tao. But the Tao is
always in flux and changing, and I was about to receive one of the greatest
lessons. This would be the lesson of impermanence.
One morning I was walking down the path toward my bungalow when I
heard a voice screaming, “The water is coming, the water is coming! Get your
stuff, the water is coming!” It was the Thai woman who owned the resort and
she was in a state of hysteria. As I rounded the corner I could see that the
ocean was surging inland. When I had arrived on Koh Lanta, the ocean had
been blue and serene. Now, it was dark gray and ominous.
I ran to my beachfront bungalow and packed my stuff as quickly as pos-
sible. By the time I had lugged everything onto the patio, I was completely
surrounded by ocean water. I was caught in a predicament. Do I abandon
my things and swim to dry land? Or do I stay with my stuff and see what
happens? After my near-drowning in Kauai, I wasn’t too excited about getting
into the water.
Then, the ocean water started to recede. It was like the plug had been
pulled from a bathtub, and all the water was being sucked back out to sea.
I was happy to no longer be surrounded by water. I found the highest hill I
could, and I quickly dragged my belongings to what I hoped was a safe spot.
A few minutes later, as I watched from atop the hill, a wave three stories
high came barreling down on top of our yoga retreat’s restaurant. In the span
of a few seconds, this entire structure disappeared without a trace. Soon after,
a second wave followed, and like a boxer, the ocean delivered a powerful
one-two knockout punch, destroying the beachfront resort.
I ran up to the main road and found utter mayhem. I jumped into the back
of a crowded pickup truck. The driver sped us to the highest point on the
island. When we got to the top, there were hundreds of people from all over
the world and they were in shock.
We had been hit by a tsunami. It was December 26, 2004. A 9.0 magnitude
earthquake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, had released the energy
of 23,000 atomic bombs. This gigantic force triggered killer waves that moved
across the Indian Ocean at the speed of a jetliner. It was one of the largest
natural disasters in recorded history and took approximately 250,000 lives.
High on top of that mountain, as the sun began to set, I made a pledge
to the Tao. I would fully embrace its power and let it be my guide. I was
committed to letting go of the small self, in order to embody the big Self. The
human experience is fragile, especially in the face of nature. I had experienced