Introduction The first time Paz and I visited Plum Village, the monastery of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, we experienced the joy and honor of being married in the Still Water Meditation Hall. The next day, Thay, as he is affectionately known, meaning "teacher" in Vietnamese, invited us for tea to celebrate our wedding. We quietly entered his small, cozy room along with three young monastics and sat in a circle on meditation cushions. Thay was gently swaying in a seated hammock at the far side of the room, his back turned to us, while two attendants prepared tea on the floor beside him. The atmosphere felt timeless. After a few moments, Thay rose and walked slowly over to sit with us. We drank tea together in silence, a moment of pure happiness. Then, hoping to "break the ice," one of the young monks said "Dear Thay, Jo was saying this morning that all your books are the same!" Embarrassed and a little flustered that the monk had misunderstood me, and that Thay might think I had reduced the breadth and depth of his entire life''s work to a single point, I tried to explain: "Thay, what I actually said is that your books are like ice cream.

They are all made from the same core ingredients, but each one has its own unique flavor." Thay smiled gently and placed his hand on my shoulder. That simple gesture of compassion dissolved my unease and brought me back to a place of calm. I was reminded of that moment while creating this book. It brings together conversations with 21 long time wisdom keepers who are from different Buddhist traditions but whose teachings arise from the same source. All of them, in their own unique ways, have played a central role in bringing the teachings of the Buddha to the West over the past half century. Together, they represent more than 1,000 years of combined practice and have helped millions of people come home to themselves and to life, offering practices that connect us with our suffering so that greater understanding, inner peace, and skillful action can arise, rooted in compassion. You might think of this book not as something to read, but as something to enter, like walking into an exquisite ice cream parlor with 21 distinct flavors, each crafted with deep care over a lifetime.

The ingredients here are not plant-based or dairy milk and sugar, offering fleeting pleasure, but Dharma and wisdom, offering lasting nourishment for body, mind, and spirit. These interviews are unlike any I conducted during my more than forty years as a journalist. They are transmissions of living wisdom, part of a lineage that stretches back nearly 2,600 years to the Buddha''s awakening under the Bodhi tree. As you read, you may sense not only the words, but the presence behind them, the depth of lived experience and the continuity of insight passed from teacher to teacher across generations. Words carry the somatic energy of the person who speaks or writes them. For this reason, I have not shaped these conversations into essays, but lightly edited them for flow and continuity. One teaching that has always inspired me is that true vision is not simply seeing clearly, but building a bridge across an abyss in service to others who can then also cross over to the other side. The wisdom keepers in this book are, in this sense, engaged visionaries.

Each has found ways to cross the apparent divide between the world of "I" and the world of "all." They have touched a sense of oneness, a dimension many of us long for but struggle to find while caught in patterns of grasping and separation. These wisdom keepers have dedicated their lives to building bridges between these two ways of experiencing reality, offering pathways toward greater connection, compassion, and equanimity. What they remind us, again and again, is that there are no quick fixes, only the practice of how we meet this moment. Each day is a training for life. Through mindfulness, we gradually learn to see more clearly, to live with more ease, and to experience the deeper dimension of life, not as a concept, but as a lived reality. They are able to do this not because they are beyond suffering, but because they have learned how to meet it. As you will see from reading this book, these 21 still fall into the same metaphorical holes.

The difference is that they know how to climb out with greater ease, and they share what they are learning along the way. Before his stroke in 2014, Thay shared in an interview about this ongoing path of learning: "In Buddhism, love has no limit. The four elements of true love, loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity, have no boundary. Practice is the same. Even if you are called a ''perfect one,'' you can still go deeper every day. There is no end to this practice. If this body lived a hundred years more, I would still continue to learn how to love better. Humanity must learn this too; we are intelligent enough, but not yet loving enough.

" --Jo Confino The idea for this book came to me during sitting meditation early one autumn morning in our Zendo. I heard a question from deep inside: ''how can we make sense of this troubled, rapidly changing world we are living in.'' Moments later I had a clear vision; Jo and I would interview respected teachers and long-term wisdom keepers from different Buddhist lineages and create a book offering wisdom and guidance that responds to the interconnected crises we are facing. It was immediately clear that we could naturally combine our skills:. As a journalist, Jo would do the interviews and as a multi-media artist, I would translate each message into a unique artwork - a sort of contemporary mandala or inner diagram. I came downstairs, finding Jo eating breakfast, and suggested to him we were going to co-create a book. He looked up briefly and mumbled something like, "Yes, of course, darling," and then went back to his porridge, clearly imagining that by lunchtime this would be forgotten. Buddhist teachings remind us that even a single thought can carry great power.

Twenty one interviews and artworks later, here we are. Reflecting on that initial vision in the meditation room, I recognize that as we enter the polycrisis, we need more than just words to awaken and take skillful action. Having created several large art installations in recent years that respond to the climate crisis, I have learned that art can convey complex concepts in a simple direct visual/emotional way, which can touch peoples'' hearts in ways that words often cannot. I have for many years been fascinated by the artistic process where energy - a thought or a feeling - can be translated into matter such as a piece of art and then through the perceptions of the viewer, transforms back to energy. Art in its purest expression is therefore the exchange of resonant energy. For my personal practice, the process of creating art offers a gateway to get intimate with the void, my unconscious, and not knowing. The way I worked to create the body of works in this book was no different. I was present during the interviews, listening deeply and waiting till I experienced a feeling in my guts that inspired me to respond visually to what was being spoken.

After each interview, I would go straight to my studio and begin working with the materials and found objects I''ve scavenged over the years, without knowing the outcome; a painting, a multimedia work, or a sculpture. The artworks in this book are not meant to be conventionally beautiful; they exist to reveal what is essential; the quiet imperfection, the subtle shifts, the moments of emergence that speak to the heart of experience. What I call chance methodology guides this process: I work intuitively, allowing unexpected forms and connections to emerge. Some pieces came in one flow while others I left in the studio and returned to them over time, reflecting and experimenting until the final form evolved and revealed itself. Gradually, the individual art pieces began to form a coherent body of work. Together they echo the function of a mandala in Buddhist art, where many distinct elements come into relationship within a single whole. Each piece has its own character and expression, yet all arise from the same underlying essence, mirroring the experience I had when listening to all the 21 interviews; Many dialects, expressing one dharma. --Paz Perlman Thich Nhat Hanh The power of Mindfulness If you know how to practice mindfulness you can generate peace and joy right here, right now.

And you''ll appreciate that and it will change you. You have to reconsider your idea of happiness. You think it is possible only if you win, if you are on the top. But even if you are successful in making more money, you still suffer. You compete because you''re not happy and meditation can help you to suffer less. If you''re happy, you cannot be a victim of your happiness. But if you''re successful, you can be a victim of your success There must be a spiritual dimension in your life and in your business, otherwise you cannot deal with the suffering caused by your work or your daily life. We need not fear that mindfulness might become only a means and not an end because in mindfulness the means and the end are the same thing.

There is no way to happiness; happiness is the way. If you consider mindfulness as a means of having a lot of money, then you have not touched its true purpose. It may look like the practice of mindfulness but inside there''s no peace, no joy, no happiness produced. It''s just an imitation. If you don''t feel the energy of brotherhood, of sisterhood, radiating from your work, that is not mindfulness. Maintaining peace in the midst of suffering Our perception of time ca.