January 2, 2010 Saturday

Saltwater Buddha by Jaimal Yogis

All of us who surf know there is a spiritual side to being in the water and riding the waves. Jaimal Yogis, who has dedicated his life to Zen and surfing, gives us a unique view of our pursuit for waves and spirituality in his book Saltwater Buddha. Zen promotes life as energy and waves are pulses of energy through water. But, it’s not easy living the Buddhist life for a surfer. A Surf Nazi in Santa Cruz put Jaimal to the test.

“Motherfuckingfaggotwhydidntyoulooklearntosurffaggot!” screams the Surf Nazi after Jaimal dropped in on him at Streamers Lane. It’s a perfect day and Jaimal just a few minutes earlier had his first covered up tube ride of his life and was feeling great about his surf abilities. He was sure that he had impressed the crowd on the cliff and then unthinkingly he drops in on the Surf Nazi. For twenty minutes this guy spews verbal abuse at him. Apologies do no good. A good Buddhist does not get angry. A single moment of anger can destroy eons of good karma, but Jaimal feels this knot welling up in his chest. His confidence crumbles and on his next wave he executes a perfect face plant to the screams of “faggot.” Buddha said that the causes of anger are frustrated desire or wounded pride. Jaimal sees the veins and lines in the Surf Nazi’s face as he is yelling. He is not having a good time and is in pain, a self-inflicted pain. Both Jaimal and the Surf Nazi are hanging onto this thing, a monster that is wrapping its sickness around their throats. Jaimal lets go of it while the Surf Nazi hangs onto it and is still screaming “faggot” as he climbs the stairs up the cliff.

In a short story that I will never forget Jaimal gives a perfect depiction of this incident:

A samurai warrior comes to a Zen master and asks him to teach him the difference between heaven and hell. The Zen master insults him, calls him an uncouth cretin, a worm and stupid. The samurai becomes enraged, draws his sword and moves to cut off the head of the Zen master.

“That samurai,” says the Zen master, “is hell.”

The samurai suddenly realizes he is about to kill a holy man because of his pride. He drops his sword, puts his hands together and bows before the Zen master.

“And that samurai,” says the master, “is heaven.”


Underneath his discussions of Zen, philosophy, and the waves, Jaimal reveals the incredible adventure he has been on for such a young person. He can’t be more than 35 years old, about the same age as my son. Here are a few of the highlights:

Azores: island of Terceira: from age 3 to 6 Jaimal’s love of the ocean begins. His father is stationed there by the military, they live two minutes from the beach and his father, a former surfer, teaches Jaimal and his sister how to body surf.

Maui, Hawaii: at age 16, Jaimal runs away from his suburban life in Sacramento being fed up with the cycle of partying, booze and pot and his arrest and probation for a DUI. He purchases a one way ticket to Hawaii thinking of taking up surfing and living a life like Buddha, the prince who also ran away from home as a young man. Jaimal buys a 6’ 6” used surfboard, once owned by pro-surfer Christian Fletcher. Surfing and meditation become his life. His father travels to Maui to bring him back. Jaimal agrees to return to take care of the DUI probation and his father promises to send him to an overseas boarding school for his senior year of high school.

France: he is sent to Le Bauliere, a suburb of Paris. The place is a ghetto and his host mother steals minutes off his phone card. He moves to Lons Le Saunie on the Swiss-French border, snowboards in the Alps and frequents a Zen monastery southwest of Bordeaux where he hears Thick Nhat Hanh, the number two Buddhist in the world, speak.

Berkeley, CA: Jaimal moves into a Chinese Buddhist monastery, rooms with Aran another young American convert and is convinced that monastic Buddhist life is his destiny. After one year, the head monk strongly suggests these two return to college.

Hilo, Hawaii: Jaimal enrolls at the University of Hawaii at Hilo as a religious study major and jumps into surfing. Surfing is his Zen practice and he becomes the thing he most despises: a surf Nazi. After yelling at some grom in the water he lets go of surfing, concentrates on his studies, does a self-imposed one-week silent retreat and gets a job as a caretaker for Lambert. Lambert has elephant man disease, is bed-ridden and requires 24 x 7 care. For one year Jaimal rooms with Lambert and fantasizes about making a movie “Jaimal Saves Lambert.” The reality is “Lambert saves Jaimal.” Lambert becomes Jaimal’s guru because of his outgoing Hawaiian nature, optimism, laughter and appreciation of everything around him.

India: for his final semester, Jaimal spends four months in a monastery in the Himalayas doing meditation retreats and teaching the monks English. He writes a couple of essays that the university accepts for credit and receives his degree in religious studies.

Manhattan, New York City: after much thought he has a revelation that the “Right Livelihood” as Buddha put it would keep him traveling to exotic surf spots, let him study everything, and keep him from spending a lifetime in a cubicle. Answer: Journalism. He applies to every journalism school in the nation, spends a year in Puerto Escondido as a surf bum living on beans and tortillas and finally receives an acceptance to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.

Jaimal overdoses on the mainstream life of Manhattan, becomes depressed, stays home for a week and reads Moby Dick. The hero Ishmael states that when life looks bleak he has to get back to the sea. A literary assignment is to write a feature article. Jaimal proposes writing about surfing in New York in the winter. His advisor thinks that’s boring, so Jaimal proposes commercial fishing in Montauk. He spends a week befriending fishermen and goes on a commercial fishing trip during a major winter storm. He wins their acceptance by pitching in after pucking up his insides.

After a year of no waves, he goes surfing at Brooklyn’s 98th Street Beach in the dead of winter. Three others are out riding some perfect head-high curls. Following the others, he jumps off the jetty to avoid paddling out. With the sun setting and after the others had left, a rogue wave clobbers him while on the jetty. The wave drills him down and wedges him between two boulders under water. He squeezes out and desperately swims to the surface. His board is mashed to pieces. He crawls up to the beach, sits there watching the snow fall and is grateful to be alive.

La Playa Street, Ocean Beach, San Francisco: two years after graduating from Columbia, things fall into place for him: a modest job with the San Francisco Magazine, a little house near the beach, his girl friend nearby, frequent visits to the monastery in Berkeley and the insight to accept himself and let the wide-open sea be his teacher:

Samara – the cycle of struggle and pain. To Buddha samara is nirvana. You can obtain enlightenment doing anything.

“Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.”

Before enlightenment, paddle out at Ocean Beach, one of the most difficult paddles in the world; after enlightenment, paddle out at Ocean Beach. No paddle, no surf. No samara, no nirvana.

Jaimal’s story abruptly ends here in San Francisco on La Playa Street. He is a young man and I’m sure his pursuits of enlightenment and surf continue. This book is a great read and I hope I live long enough to read his sequel thirty years from now to learn how his surfing and spiritual insights have progressed.