The Shambhala Warriors

[villager]

THE SHAMBHALA PROPHECY

Coming to us across twelve centuries, the prophecy about the coming of the Shambhala warriors illustrates the challenges we face in the Great Turning and the strengths we can bring to it. Joanna learned it in 1980 from Tibetan friends in India, who were coming to believe that this ancient prophecy referred to this very planet-time. She often recounts it in workshops, for the signs it foretold are recognizable now, signs of great danger.

<snip>

There comes a time when all life on Earth is in danger. Great barbarian powers have arisen. Although these powers spend their wealth in preparations to annihilate one another, they have much in common: weapons of unfathomable destructive power, and technologies that lay waste our world. In this era, when the future of sentient life hangs by the frailest of threads, the kingdom of Shambhala emerges. You cannot go there, for it is not a place; it is not a geopolitical entity. It exists in the hearts and minds of the Shambhala warriors—that is the term Choegyal used, "warriors." Nor can you recognize a Shambhala warrior when you see her or him, for they wear no uniforms or insignia, and they carry no banners. They have no barricades on which to climb to threaten the enemy, or behind which they can hide to rest or regroup. They do not even have any home turf. Always they must move on the terrain of the barbarians themselves.

Now the time comes when great courage—moral and physical courage—is required of the Shambhala warriors, for they must go into the very heart of the barbarian power, into the pits and pockets and citadels where the weapons are kept, to dismantle them. To dismantle weapons, in every sense of the word, they must go into the corridors of power where decisions are made.

<snip>

The weapons are compassion and insight. Both are necessary, he said. You have to have compassion because it gives you the juice, the power, the passion to move. It means not to be afraid of the pain of the world. Then you can open to it, step forward, act. But that weapon by itself is not enough. It can burn you out, so you need the other—you need insight into the radical interdependence of all phenomena. With that wisdom you know that it is not a battle between "good guys" and "bad guys," because the line between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart. With insight into our profound inter-relatedness—our deep ecology—you know that actions undertaken with pure intent have repercussions throughout the web of life, beyond what you can measure or discern. By itself, that insight may appear too cool, too conceptual, to sustain you and keep you moving, so you need the heat of compassion. Together these two can sustain us as agents of wholesome change. They are gifts for us to claim now in the healing of our world.

These two weapons of the Shambhala warrior represent two essential aspects of the Work that Reconnects. One is the recognition and experience of our pain for the world. The other is the recognition and experience of our radical, empowering interconnectedness with all life.

(scriptural source: the Kalachakra Tantra, 8th century AD)

http://www.joannamacy.net/html/greatturning/shambhala.html

[I Have A Dream]

1. Thanks for sharing this, villager! n/t

[DemExpat]

2. Yes, thank you for posting this.

..... One is the recognition and experience of our pain for the world. The other is the recognition and experience of our radical, empowering interconnectedness with all life.

I feel this describes the essence of what my life has been revolving around in the past several decades very well.

I don't quite feel it all as empowering yet :-), except for my Love - for I do not feel capable of going into the Lion's Den so to speak to dismantle the weapons of destruction - but this is what is now at the core of my being, underlying everything that I experience and strive for.

DemEx

[villager]

3. yes -- we're all headed for this particular "reckoning"

where the old ways of doing business are finally discarded, or...?

and yes, I've kinda felt this way -- without always being able to put it in words -- since my age was measured in single digits...

[Delphinus]

4. I'm longing for more information now ...

(and I'm glad this was at the bottom of the page, otherwise I may have missed it!).