Tomorrow at 4:20 I will facilitate the content I have created over the last 12 years or so to a small group of teenagers. Because of the time of day, and perhaps the unconventiality of the content to the space (a public school setting), it will feel different than it feels right now.

Right now I have listened to the 2003 interview between Krista Tippet and Thich Nhat Hanh for the unknownth number of times. It’s so rich. The depth of my belief in what’s possible feels immeasurable in the quiet of early morning. All things so clearly connect through the energy of pure potential.

As the day breaks, life awakens and the quiet is interrupted. On Mondays at 4:20pm, the clarity of the early morning can feel almost silly, an imaginary world that I have created in an unrealistic environment that is unique to only myself.

For now, I choose to share what supports that which I have the opportunity to evoke in young, precious souls…the something more. The simple idea that being present to one’s own and other’s suffering within the infinite field of pure potential, can ultimately shift perception to one of a vast and interconnected web of a shared humanity.

The interview is so relevant to today, as Krista artfully describes in the introduction of the reshare in 2022, a tribute to his death.

Each time I listen, I’m reminded of the simplicity of stillness, or mindful meditation.

TNH’s words underpin the vision of Azrya Bequer in the 2.4.25 interview following the LA fire that burned Azrya’s home.

Both listens tell the story of how to live simply within the complex nature of space-time reality.

The quote I tend to dwell on from the TNH interview is KT asking: Is violence different between now and then, is there progress or is the same pattern repeating itself? (she’s referring to the lifetime of TNH and what began as engaged buddhism in Vietnam that eventually brought him to the states in an act of neutral activism to share the suffering of the people – the people of Vietnam and the people sent over to kill and be killed. TNH answered: Yes. It’s the same pattern. When asked if that made him despair, he responded (not an exact quote): When people who are capable of understanding come together to show a new way (compassion and understanding, right perception), it can transform the suffering.

Azrya Bequer talks about the power of storytelling centered in LA. She talks about an opportunity to begin again. She also speaks of the difficulty being an entrepreneur and leader in a time of a shifting paradigm. She referred to it as an ‘awkward transformative phase’: …fallen in the trap of using outdated ways, and trying to apply them to building something that is supposed to be new, but still being somewhere stuck in the middle.’

A new paradigm. A new vision.