These are the last days that we will share with Joanna Macy, as the beloved Buddhist scholar and founder of The Work That Reconnects spends her remaining time in hospice care with her friends and family.

Death comes for us all, of course. My Buddhist perspective on death gives me comfort as I believe that Joanna will continue to exist, just in a different form. Yet a poignant poem from Zen monk Ryōkan resounds in my mind as I imagine Joanna slipping away from us: “Although from the beginning I knew the world is impermanent, not a moment passes when my sleeves are dry.”

I am grieving her loss at a time when the world desperately needs her wisdom. Yet I know her life’s work will live on through the Work That Reconnects, the countless people she inspired, and the words in her wonderful books, including an essential reading for our time: Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in with Unexpected Resilience & Creative Power.

One of the most important nuggets of wisdom Joanna shared with us was her telling of the ancient Shambhala warrior prophecy. The prophecy speaks to bodhisattvas— known in the prophecy as the Shambhala warriors— who, with great courage and resolve, work to dismantle the human-made systems that cause such suffering in the world. An excerpt of her telling of the prophecy is below:

“Now is the time the Shambhala warriors go into training. They train in the use of two implements. One is compassion and the other is insight into the radical interdependence of all phenomena. You need both. You need the compassion because that provides the fuel to move you out where you need to be to do what you need to do. That means not being afraid of the suffering of your world. When you’re not afraid to be with that pain, then nothing can stop you. You can be and do what you’re meant to. But by itself that implement is very hot – it can burn you out. So you need that other tool – you need the insight into the radical interconnectivity at the heart of existence, the web of life, our deep ecology. When you have that, then you know that this is not a battle between good guys and bad guys. You know that the line between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart. And you know that we are so interwoven in the web of life that even the smallest act, with clear intention, has repercussions through the whole web beyond your capacity to see. But that’s a little cool; maybe even a little abstract. You need the heat of the compassion – the interplay between compassion and wisdom.”

Compassion and insight into interbeing: these are the tools the Shambhala warriors, the bodhisattvas, need to cultivate in our time. With so much seemingly out of our control — the erosion of democracy in the United States and the fear-inducing headlines in the news every single day— I feel empowered with Joanna’s wisdom that my personal cultivation of compassion and insight into interbeing is within my control. As Joanna transitions into what lies next for her, I am holding onto an active hope that training in the two implements will provide a foundation for a better, more loving, more beautiful world.

Note: Joanna Macy passed away on July 19, 2025, two days after this post was published.