Jaimal Yogis, the author and surfer behind the book Saltwater Buddha, on riding Buddhism's "three vehicles." When I was nineteen, I went to live in a Ch’an (Chinese Zen) Buddhist monastery, hoping to become a monk. I didn't. After about a year of the 3:30 AM wake-up bell and one meal per day, I took on another archetypal path of freedom: surf bum. To keep up my dharma [...]
That Time I Sobbed My Way Through a Himalayan Meditation Retreat
After soldiering through his grief, Jaimal Yogis sat down, looked at his mind, and let the floodgates open. There were a lot of tears — but who said that's a bad thing? Fear, sadness, grief, jealousy, and anger are like quicksand: resisting them in a sudden, knee-jerk way can make them much more troublesome. But investigating them patiently – embracing them, even — can [...]
What’s happened to Sonam? Jaimal Yogis follows up on the fortunes of a spiritual friend
In his article "So Sad, No Problem," Saltwater Buddha author Jaimal Yogis shared the story of Sonam, a Tibetan Buddhist monk – ordained by the Dalai Lama himself – who Jaimal met in India and would teach the author an unexpected lesson about coping with love and loss. Sonam expressed two dreams to Jaimal – to earn a US visa, and to use it to visit with his family back in Tibet. [...]
So Sad, No Problem
Roaming India after a painful breakup, Jaimal Yogis befriends a monk who teaches him an unexpected lesson about happiness. As a Tibetan Buddhist monk, Sonam had no experience with romantic strife, yet he ended up teaching me how to cope with love and loss. He was twenty-five, just a year older than I was, but he’d endured difficulty beyond his years. When Sonam was eleven, [...]
“Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer’s Quest to Find Zen on the Sea” – An exclusive excerpt
With all that talk about "balance", it's tempting to make tenuous connections between the practice of Zen and the practice of paddling out, standing up, and riding a wave. There are real connections between the two—but it helps to be a surfer and a Zen-head if you want to know what you're talking about. Author Jaimal Yogis is both, as his book Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer's [...]
My Money’s Gone, But I Feel Oddly Free
Jaimal Yogis, author of Saltwater Buddha -- and subject of the documentary film of the same name, one of six featured in the Lion's Roar BuddhaFest Online Film Festival -- on the beauty of having nothing to lose. On a recent morning one of my good friends, a very successful options trader I’ll call John, called me around 10 a.m. The stock market had dropped another 600 points [...]
