CYCLE OF THE SKY · BOOK ONE
CYCLE OF THE SKY · BOOK ONE
Weslyn Redinger wants one thing: to be normal again. Racked by panic attacks that have ruined her life and driven off her friends in the months since she saw the body of a young boy she loved rolled out to a waiting ambulance, she is now drawn in to a circle of seekers who surround a mysterious stranger living in her grandmother’s backyard shed. After reluctantly attending his teachings, a series of dreams is unleashed—as vivid as her waking life. At night she is an attendant to the female teacher Uza Khandro from the Tibetan countryside, during the day she is a flawed sixteen-year-old struggling to get control over her body and her life.
The idea for this first book came to me during the last few months of a formal three-year retreat under the guidance of one of the last of the generation of meditation masters who completed his years in retreat and gained awakening in old Tibet before the Chinese communist invaders made staying there impossible. Having been squirreled away with a group of other practitioners for all that time, I wondered, how can I help other people when I get out? Still unenlightened, I none-the-less have been deeply involved in these techniques over a couple of decades, and have greatly reduced my anxiety and depression and created more positive mental habits. I’ve got a purpose in life that isn’t a stupid waste of time. I want to help you meet with qualified teachers and start practicing sooner than I did. So, I wrote Excavating for you since my retreat ended and I came home to Oakland, California.
You can train your mind so you’re happier and suffer less. I’m a simple old coot and I’ve done that using the tools I learned from my wise Tibetan teachers—you certainly can. But that’s only the beginning. After you get a handle on how your own mind works, you can evolve into a great being who has natural love and compassion for all living beings equally. If you wish, you can take practice to the level where you have the actual ability to relieve the suffering of vast numbers of beings effortlessly. That level of accomplishment is known as being a Buddha or a Bodhisattva, an enlightened being.
Excavating Pema Ozer is my gift to you, so you can know what it’s like to begin to be transformed though involvement in one of the wisdom traditions that come to us from Tibet. Everyone’s experience will be different, but I started with my character Weslyn because she lost someone to gun violence, and a lot of teens in my neighborhood have, too. In her case, that motivated her to start meditating. Other people have all kinds of different reasons.