Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer's Quest to Find Zen on the Sea

By Jaimal Yogis

Fed up with teenage life in the suburbs, Jaimal Yogis ran off to Hawaii with little more than a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and enough cash for a surfboard. His journey is a coming-of-age saga that takes him from communes to monasteries, from the warm Pacific to the icy New York shore. Equal parts spiritual memoir and surfer's tale, this is a chronicle of finding meditative focus in the barrel of a wave and eternal truth in the great salty blue.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Release date: Apr 10, 2009
• ISBN: 9780861719983

Jaimal Yogis

Jaimal Yogis is an award-winning writer, outdoorsman, and frequent teacher. He is the author of the memoir Saltwater Buddha, which has been made into a feature documentary film, and The Fear Project: What Our Most Primal Emotion Taught Me About Survival, Success, Surfing, and Love. A graduate of Columbia Journalism School, he has written for ESPN: The Magazine, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, San Francisco magazine, Surfer’s Journal, and many other publications. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Amy, and their three sons.

Reviews for Saltwater Buddha

[krazy4katz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Saltwater Buddha is a high school kid's response to growing up in suburban California the son of divorced parents, longing for independence, spirituality and good surfing. How to find it? Steal some money from your mom (yes, he paid it back) and hop on a flight to Hawaii! After that, it is all ups and downs as you might expect. The book is a lovely memoir that describes the Buddhist perspective on self and how to find it in the middle of water, surfing the big ones. Funny, honest, warm and human, this book does not disappoint.

[kenno82 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Loved this book. It really resonated with me. It was authentic, honest, thought provoking, funny, accessible - everything you want a book to be. It'll be a book that I come back to.

[viking2917_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A high school age Jaimal runs away from home to Hawaii to surf. Leaves a note for him mom: “I'm somewhere in the world, and I'll call you when I get there.” A wonderful coming-of-age memoir, touching on surfing, hawaii, and Buddhism. You'll come away from the book re-committed to living in the moment and surfing whatever wave, water or otherwise, you're riding.

[gkleinman_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I've never been a surfer but have always had a love for the ocean. Combine that with my new found discovery of meditation and Jaimal Yogis book seemed to be the perfect summer read. Saltwater Buddha is much more than just a love letter to surfing or an examination of Zen it captures the eternal struggle we all have to find our bliss and how we manage to find ways to get in the way of it. Written in an extremely readable style that flows though out the book Saltwater Buddha is the kind of book you won't want rush your way through. The end came all too quickly for me when I read it and I plan on revisiting the book again sometime soon. However your journey got you to this book, odds are the next step is to read it. It's a beautiful and exceptional book, one that deserves all the accolades it receives.