Shambhala Warriors

In face of destructive powers, we are called to enhance our joy of living and our resistance to evil. Because of the enormity of the cruelty that is unleashed, we are forced to become more and more what we always wish we were. Comfortable situations breed acedia, i.e., lack of action: it’s a rule of life, hardly avoidable.

But now, faced with the unthinkable, and deeply unsettled by the violence poured daily on the world, we are becoming the Shambhala Warriors that the late and beloved Joanna Macy spoke about so eloquently and embodied so fiercely.

According to a Tibetan prophecy, it is precisely when things go really bad that common people rise up, not as a mob, but as individuals armed with compassion and insight: the Shambhala Warriors. I speak regularly with people who are not activists, who don’t spend a lot of time hearing or reading the news, whom I would not expect to talk about politics at all, who are saying: “Enough of the daily massacres of people who are begging for food! Enough of mass starvation under the pretense of self-defense!”

The common thread of these conversation is: we did not expect that elected officials could yield so much cruel and unchecked power; the system is completely broken and corrupt; democracy is gone world over (with exceptions); and — these people are also saying— instead of resignation, these events calls us to resist, making lives of meaning, and joy, and resilience. They are making direct connections between greed and war, between pollution and corruption, between spirituality and mental sanity. They are awake and bright. They are invisible, and yet there are many of them.

It is interesting — in my view — that at this point people are not acting as a mob, like it has happened historically through violent revolutions. I am not speaking against organized nonviolent resistance, which is necessary and much to be praised. I am observing that individuals who would not otherwise rise and protest are becoming quietly conscious and determined. There are many more Shambhala Warriors in the making than we may think.

Those who pose with complacency before the Alligator Alcatraz signs, they also exist. They remind me of Psalm 49:15:

Like sheep they are appointed for the netherworld;
    Death shall be their shepherd;
straight to the grave they descend,
    and their form shall waste away.

One Italian translation of Psalm 49:15b is even more telling: Corrono dritto al sepolcro per consumare negli inferi la loro nullità (They run straight to their grave, to find an end in the underworld to their nothingness).

We are — of course — all going to die, individually. But even without entering the moot terrain of afterlife, it appears more and more with great clarity to many individuals that a life well-lived is very different than a life unlived and controlled by fears, ideals of conformity, and the unleashing of violent passions.

Awareness and lack of awareness are now juxtaposed to each other, probably as never before. But we are all humans, and there is permeability between the two camps, even though the membrane is invisible. The job of Shambhala Warriors, who are also invisible to most, is to attract molecules from the other camp and awaken them to their humanity.

The same Psalm continues, in the next verse:  But God will ransom my soul from the power of the netherworld, for he will receive me.

When somebody like Joanna dies, a great energy of peace and strength is released in the world. I don’t know how to explain it, but it is felt by many.

As a Christian, I can’t resist imagining Joanna welcomed by throngs of angels into the bosoms of Abraham and Sarah, with everybody shouting: “Welcome, beloved daughter! Well done! Very well done!”

But even putting my imagination aside, I think that we can perceive how our souls are being ransomed right now from the power of the netherworld, of confusion and despair and dissolution, when we become able to resist the present state of affairs with compassion and insight, with joy and kindness, with love and determination.

Nobody like Joanna Macy will rise again.

Yet we are all Shambhala Warriors, we are all Joannas.

---

See Matthew Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election

See also Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society

And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice

And Fox, Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality

And Fox, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times

Banner Image: “It’s Time for Good Trouble.” Boston residents gather in a HandsOff against ICE. Photo by Lorianne DeSabato, is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 on OpenVerse.

---

Queries for Contemplation

How do you embody Shambhala Warrior energy? How conscious are you of doing so already?

---

Related Readings by Matthew Fox

Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election

Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE. 
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE. 
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.

Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society

Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them. 
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science.  A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics

A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice

In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register

Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
Selected with an Introduction by Charles Burack

To encapsulate the life and work of Matthew Fox would be a daunting task for any save his colleague Dr. Charles Burack, who had the full cooperation of his subject. Fox has devoted 50 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship.  His more than 40 books, translated into 78 languages, are inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and have awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. Essential Writings begins by exploring the influences on Fox’s life and spirituality, then presents selections from all Fox’s major works in 10 sections.
“The critical insights, the creative connections, the centrality of Matthew Fox’s writings and teaching are second to none for the radical renewal of Christianity.” ~~ Richard Rohr, OFM.

The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times

A stunning spiritual handbook drawn from the substantive teachings of Aquinas’ mystical/prophetic genius, offering a sublime roadmap for spirituality and action.
Foreword by Ilia Delio.
“What a wonderful book!  Only Matt Fox could bring to life the wisdom and brilliance of Aquinas with so much creativity. The Tao of Thomas Aquinas is a masterpiece.”
–Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit

---