“There comes a time when all life on Earth is threatened. Great barbaric powers have arisen. Although they expend their resources in preparations to annihilate one another, they have much in common: weapons of unimaginable destructive power and technologies that devastate our world. In this era, when the future of all sentient life hangs by the thinnest of threads, the kingdom of Shambhala emerges.
You cannot go there because it is not a place. It is not a geopolitical entity. This realm exists in the hearts and minds of the warriors of Shambhala. Nor can you recognize a warrior of Shambhala when you meet one, for they wear no uniforms, no insignia, and they carry no standards. They have no barricades to climb to threaten the enemy, or behind which to hide to rest or gather. They do not even have their own territory and must always move through the terrain of the barbarians themselves.
Now comes the time when great courage—moral and physical courage—is required of the warriors of Shambhala, for they must go to the very heart of barbarian power, to the nooks and crannies where weapons are made and kept, in order to dismantle them. To dismantle weapons, in every sense of the word, they must go to the corridors of power, where decisions are made.
Shambhala warriors have the courage to do this because they know that these weapons are "manomaya," mental creations. Made by the human mind, they can be defeated by the human mind. Shambhala warriors know that the dangers that threaten life on Earth are not imposed upon us by an extraterrestrial power, satanic deities, malignant fate, or predestination. They come from our own decisions, our lifestyle, and our relationships with others.
Also, Shambhala warriors train. How do they train?
They train using two weapons. These weapons are compassion and awareness. Both are necessary. You need compassion because it gives you the energy, the power, and the passion to move forward. It means not being afraid of the suffering in the world. You can then open yourself to it, move forward, and act. But this weapon in itself is not enough. Used alone, it can burn you. So you need the other—you need an awareness of the radical interdependence of all phenomena. This wisdom tells you that this is not a battle between “good guys” and “bad guys” because the demarcation between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart. Through the perception of our deep interdependence—our deep ecology—we know that actions taken with pure intention ripple across the entire web of life, beyond what can be measured or discerned. But since this awareness alone can be too cold, we need the warmth of compassion. Together, these two notions can help us be agents of healthy change. They are gifts so that we can participate in the healing of the planet.
* This prophecy is recounted in Joanna Macy's book "Practical Ecology and Rituals for the Earth." She heard it told in 1980 by Tibetan friends and has been perpetuated for twelve centuries.
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