Quotes about Shambhala

Within my mind
I live on a small blue planet.
Everyone seems far away,
No one seems close.
Everywhere is blackness,
Yet abundant life consumes each moment.
I wish and hope
Everyone could see this blue fragile life
Floating in the blackness–
Next time they miss the bus,
Next time they forget to look and smile.

We are floating on a blue dot–
We should all be frightfully concerned.
No matter what you think, what I think,
We will always be on this blue dot,
Unless we are the masters of darkness
Or the emperors of blackness.

Look at each other–
Be kind
Stop
Look up
See blue.
That color came from somewhere.
It could be another color if we don't play our cards right.
Our worst enemies we should hold,
Because even they love blue.

The Sakyong, Jamgön Mipham Rinpoche
Paris, June 2002 on the occasion of a solar eclipse

Too often, people think that solving the world's problems is based on conquering the earth, rather than touching the earth, touching ground.

    "Edwin Firmage, a recognized authority on constitutional and international law, who has worked for several decades on the control of nuclear weapons, has written that 'Law [exterior legal control] can help, but it leaves you hopelessly short of where we must be. Even if by law you could eliminate all nuclear weapons from the earth by fiat, you don't lobotomize a generation of physicists. You could begin the whole process of arms racing again. How do you change the souls of human beings? You have to go where law can't get you....'22 You have to go, that is, to the interior quadrants and the growth of the soul, the growth of wisdom, the growth of consciousness, an interior growth in the Left-Hand quadrants that will keep pace with the growth in Right-Hand technologies. 23 And it simply does not matter that this is an impossibly difficult task; the alternative is painfully clear.

    Whatever the solutions to these problems, the discussion must surely shift to an integral platform, because anything less than that leaves out fundamental dimensions of the crisis, which will then more likely speed out of control on its merry way to a destiny with death."