Naljorma Yudron Wangmo is a longtime practitioner of Nyingma Buddhism who is living the open question of what it means to be a Buddhist yogini in twenty-first century America. She abides in the wilds of east Oakland, California, where beauty and violence collide. Not knowing what to do with herself since her lama told her to stop doing long retreats, she is writing novels about flawed heroic teenagers who are transformed by Dharma.
I’d been dreaming. Something about that dream made me feel like I was soaked with joy. Not joy like kicking it at a party. Joy all through me. Every muscle loosened, like during the night I’d set something heavy down I’d been carrying my whole life. It felt important. But Buddha? Really? Who would ever have thought that this black girl from the East Bay would be meditating and dreaming about Buddha?
A historical fiction about the great female meditation master Sera Khandro, from the point of view of Pema Ozer, a sixteen-year-old attendant, involving being empowered and guided in an intimate atmosphere.