Editor's Note - Tenzing Norbu (“Ten” for short) is an ex-Buddhist monk/ex-LAPD cop and current homicide detective from a series of fiction novels published by Hay House. This time, Ten’s investigations lead him down the darkest corners of the Internet and halfway around the globe to Sarajevo as he navigates the seedy worlds of human trafficking and personal regret in the newest installment, The Fourth Rule of Ten.

Topanga Canyon, Calif.- July 5, Year of the Water Snake

A vast herd of faceless children. Thick. Boundless. They slog forward, their pace slow and strained, their arms outstretched as if striving to get somewhere that’s perpetually out of reach. They are compelled by yearning, by faint hope mixed with despair. Now I am in the midst of them, pushing through the morass of mixed and sticky emotions. I cast my eyes around, searching for a tool, a magic wand maybe, to wave over these struggling young souls that I might ease their effort and aid them in their journey.

Fear invades. Acrid and biting, it’s sharp enough to pucker my mouth. What if I’m one of them? I’m in the middle of the herd, after all. My own footsteps are labored and sluggish, as if I’m wading through tar. My own heart is filled with a nameless longing. Am I, too, trapped in a futile journey?

No. This is not real.

I bend my knees and drop into a crouch. With a burst of muscle and hope, I propel myself up, away from the throng, and out of the oppressive grip of the dream. My heart thumped against the struts of my rib cage. I turned my head to check the red digits of the clock beside my bed. Three forty-three a.m. and dead quiet except for a low rumble emitting from Tank. My cat, too, had been pulled from sleep. Now he sat upright next to my head, Sphinx-like, purring, gazing at me with wide-eyed interest.

I slid my palm from the dome of his skull to the soft fur that surrounded his neck like a downy muffler. “It’s okay, big guy. Just another weird dream.”

Tank lowered his head and placed it between his paws. His eyelids dropped like blinds, snuffing out a pair of glowing green coals. Within seconds, he was sound asleep again. At 3:43 in the morning, this was a good skill to have. Unfortunately, only one of us had it. I lay in the darkness as my pounding heart returned to a steady, slow beat. I consciously revisited the dimensions and images of the dream. There was something compelling about its emotional tone. Allow.

I softened my awareness to feel into this particular flavor and found it buried in the borderland of belly and solar plexus: fear fueled by desperation. Allow. Allow, Ten.

Inside the desperation two other distinct feelings huddled close, like fraternal twins fed by the same womb: the deep anguish of one being—trapped in a difficult journey leading nowhere good—and the powerlessness of another, unable to help. I knew what the dream was about.

The clock had advanced an entire minute. Three forty-four a.m. Woo-hoo. I surveyed my brain-space to determine if there was any possibility that I might get back to sleep. The answer was an instantaneous negative. I slipped out of bed without disturbing the rhythm of Tank’s easy snores.

The wood floor felt cool and smooth against the soles of my feet. I reached my arms high, then bent to lay my palms flat against the hardwood. As I straightened, I declared the morning officially underway. A new day, and my first opportunity to practice a new rule: let go of expectations, for expectations lead to suffering.

A sigh escaped. No matter what events July 5th might bring, anticipated or not, I was fairly certain of one thing: the day was bound to be less upsetting than the Fourth of July. . . .