Book excerpt: Somebody’s Listening is the awe-inspiring true story of a seeker’s mystical journey of awakening and fulfillment. This enlightening journey traces a long arc from a revealing California childhood in the fifties through the sixties and on to adulthood, when a decades-long spiritual journey begins under the tutelage of a Chinese Taoist-Buddhist priest in the summer of 1980. A truly auspicious and mystical event happens that summer, the first of many illuminating experiences during the long apprenticeship. Written with grace and expansion, this book brings the reader along a journey of inconceivable wonder, filled with spiritual insights, practical guidelines, and revelatory realizations that are both current and ancient. Somebody’s Listening is spiritual nourishment, intended to inspire the cultivation of spiritual values in daily life through Taoist and Buddhist principles and practice and to bring awareness of something greater than ourselves in the hopes all might find peace.