Sharing Pizza to Sharing Dharma
🕊️Impact #8 : How Sharing Actually Works (It’s Not What You Think)
I’ve been reflecting on this journey of sharing in a world where people tend to overshare but not truly share.
Why is it sometimes so hard to share what we know, what we believe, what we’ve lived?
Knowing is one thing.
Living it is another.
And sharing it—that’s something else entirely.
Why do I hesitate? In my case, there were two patterns.
One: urgency.
When I feel urgency, I share without hesitation or a split second of self-doubt, doubt for anything. I once made a short video about traditional Mayan women in Mexico who were being threatened by rapid modernization. I barely knew how to use a camera properly, but I shared it anyway, right on the spot, only taking a couple of hours to edit. The message felt more important than the form.
Two: the opposite. Too much thinking. Too much “me.”
“It has to be perfect.”
“I’m not ready yet.”
“I’m not qualified enough.”
Or simply—“I don’t want to share.” Like hiding a chocolate bar at the bottom of my bag for later.
I only started sharing my dreams—and Dharma—recently, and with countless strangers.
Some say that when you declare your vision publicly, it strengthens your path.
Over a decade ago, I used to say this out loud:
“I want to help build a peaceful global society.”
It sounded big. Almost abstract.
Then a friend grounded me. “I think peace is made right where you are. Here, where we’re standing now.”
That was Camila—my university friend, a devout Christian, and someone who quietly held me together during one of the hardest phases of my life. My English was weak. I reread textbooks multiple times and still didn’t understand. I worked two or three part-time jobs just to survive. Weekends were not rest—they were recovery. I was exhausted. And yet, conversations with her felt like both balm and ignition.
She was right.
Peace isn’t somewhere else.
It starts here.
With what I have, what can I do—right here, right now?
That’s how I started a small university community: REbbon International.
My nickname on campus was “Ribbon,” meaning “born anew.” We wanted to become something like that—a small offering to the world. We hosted talks, shared perspectives, ran seasonal donation drives. Clothes, goods, whatever we didn’t need—we passed it on to women’s shelters and community centers in the community.
Our first monthly meeting felt huge to me. I came an hour early.
Slides ready.
Vision clear.
And most importantly—hot fresh pizzas.
Because nothing brings students together like food.
I ordered ten large boxes.
Ten minutes past start time. Twenty minutes. The pizza started cooling.
Then the door opened. Shelly.
“Sorry, my class ran late,” she said, stepping into an empty room.
My phone buzzed.
“I got an interview today.”
“I can’t make it—urgent assignment.”
I had expected at least ten people, the core members.
It was just us.
Disappointment came quickly. Then resentment. Then that quiet, familiar thought: “Well… this is reality.” Shelly looked at me gently. “Should we just go ahead, the two of us?” I smiled, but my mind was elsewhere.
“What do we do with all this pizza?” I said.
Ten boxes in my arms. Empty campus. Nowhere to go.
Then something clicked. I headed toward East Hastings Street. In Vancouver, it’s known for homelessness, addiction, and poverty. Not a place people casually walk into.
But that night, it felt obvious.
If our mission was “peace,” then what could be more immediate than feeding someone who was hungry?
I started handing out pizza.
“Oh—pizza! I was hungry. Can I have another slice?”
“Take a whole box. Share it with others too, it’s all for you.”
Within ten minutes, everything was gone.
The weight in my arms disappeared.
This—was the meeting.
Not the slides. Not the planning. Not the expectation of who would show up.
Just this. Sharing food. Meeting people. Responding to what was actually happening.
The Buddha once said:
“If beings knew, as I know, the result of giving and sharing, they would not eat without having given.”
— Itivuttaka
Sometimes we think impact has to be structured. Planned. Scalable. Impressive.
But often, it is immediate.
Unplanned.
Human.
You prepare for something—and your laptop dies.
You plan a perfect trip—and it rains all week.
You hire the “right” person—and everything falls apart.
Life does not follow your agenda.
What matters is not always how well you prepared.
But how you meet what actually unfolds.
That night, I could have gone home disappointed. My frustration wasn’t about people not showing up. It was about my expectation that they should.
Now, almost ten months into sharing Dharma online—mostly through short videos—I see a different version of the same lesson.
Two, three minutes of speaking. Raw, slightly filtered of course refined and prepared bit, not perfect. And yet— People write back through messages, comments, stories of how something small shifted their day, their thinking, their feeling, and lots of gratitude.
That still surprises me.
That something so simple—sharing a thought, a reflection, a moment of clarity—can ripple into someone else’s life.
Sharing is already happening.
All the time.
We share breath.
Food systems.
Energy.
Language.
Ideas.
Attention.
The only time sharing stops—is when we believe something is “mine.”
But even that is temporary.
So maybe peace leadership is not about scale.
Not about perfection.
Not even about intention alone.
Keeping the mind supple.
The heart light.
And being flexible enough to respond—wisely—in the moment.
Journaling & Perspective-Shift Practice
Peace doesn’t have to be grand. Sometimes it’s a warm word. A pause in a loud day. A simple act of noticing.
What image comes to mind when you think of “peace”?
From where you stand right now, how can you create peace—even in a small way?
What are you already sharing—through your presence, your words, your actions?
What has been shared with you that brought you peace?