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

Pounding surf might seem like an odd medium for the search for Zen tranquility, but for Jaimal Yogis, it's the only path that will do. Fed up with the life of a suburban teenager, at age 16 Yogis ran off to Hawaii with little more than a surfboard and a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. He chronicles his journey in vivid detail in this spiritual coming-of-age tale that takes him from Hawaiian communes to French monasteries to the icy New York shore.

Equal parts spiritual memoir and surfer's diary, Saltwater Buddha is the author's lively account of finding meditative focus in the hollow green pipeline of the wave. Trying to find Zen salvation in the rhythmic crashing of waves, Yogis eventually discovers something of eternal truth in the great salty blue.