There comes a time when all life on Earth is in danger. In that time great powers have arisen. Barbarian powers as they’re called. And although they waste their wealth in preparations to annihilate each other, they have much in common. And among the things they have in common are weapons of unfathomable, destructive power and technologies that lay waste to the world. It is just at this point, when the future of all beings hangs by the frailest of threads, that the kingdom of Shambhala emerges.
Now, you can’t go there, because it’s not a place. It exists in the hearts and minds of the Shambhala warriors. And you can’t tell whether someone is a Shambhala warrior just by looking at them because they wear no uniform or insignia. They have no banners to show which side they’re on, no barricades on which to climb to threaten the enemy or behind which they can rest and regroup. The Shambhala warriors don’t have any home turf. There is only the terrain of the barbarian powers for them to move on, regroup, and use.
The dangers facing us are not fashioned by some satanic deity or by an evil extraterrestrial force or by some immutable preordained fate. These dangers are created by our relationships, our habits, our choices.
Now the time comes when great courage is required of the Shambhala warriors, moral courage and physical courage. That is because they’re going right into the heart of the barbarian’s power to dismantle their power and dismantle their weapons, weapons in every sense of the word. As they make their way into the pits and citadels where the armaments are made, so are they also entering the corridors of power where decisions are made.
Now, heed this. The Shambhala warriors know these weapons can be dismantled. That is because they are manomaya, an old word that means “mind-made.” Made by the human mind, they can be unmade by the human mind. The dangers facing us are not fashioned by some satanic deity or by an evil extraterrestrial force or by some immutable preordained fate. These dangers are created by our relationships, our habits, our choices.
“So now is the time,” said Chogyal Rinpoche, “for the Shambhala warriors to go into training.”
“How do they train?” I asked.
“They train in the use of two implements or tools.”
“What are they?” I asked, and he held up his hands the way the lamas hold the ritual objects, the dorje and bell, in the great monastic dances of his people.
“One,” he said, “is compassion. The other is insight into the radical interdependence of all phenomena. You need both,” he said. “You need compassion because it provides the fuel to move you out where you need to be in order to do what you need to do. It means not being afraid of the suffering of your world. That tool is very hot. By itself it is so hot it can burn you out. So you need the other tool, the insight that reveals the interbeing of all that is. When that dawns in you then you know that this is not a battle between good people and bad people but that the line between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart. And you know that we are so interwoven that even our smallest acts have repercussions that ripple through the web of life, beyond our capacity to discern. But that knowing is kind of cool. It can seem at times a bit abstract. That’s why you need the heat of real passion.”
That’s the essence of the prophecy. If you have watched Tibetan monks or nuns chanting, you’ve probably seen their hands making gestures or mudras at the same time. And their hands may well be dancing the interplay between compassion and insight, which is there for each of us to embody and use in our own way.
Ep 10 Bonus: The Shambala Warrior Prophecy from the podcast series We Are The Great Turning is shared here with permission.
