Here is a preliminary call to action that was made before 2024.
It is from this we named our stupa building group “Before 24”.
There is much in this audio or it’s accompanying text that is worthy of attention.
Ram Audio Message
Ram Audio Message, Yasmina French Translation
There are times when we feel strongly motivated to action. Times when we have no choice but to act and times where we turn in the countless apparent reasons why we should act.
Conscious action is truly rare. The 100 days and this proposal of motivated to act present that rare opportunity.
Much of the work that we have been taking part in has an underlying principle of not knowing. This is not the not knowing of ignorance, it is the supreme not knowing of non dualistic mind, where something known and the knowing are not separate. It might also be quite simply an act of obedience. Obedience is fundamental to monastic orders, it is also fundamental to the organisation of the cosmos: matter obeys laws. We obey laws, laws imposed by people and laws that are inherent in the cosmic function. Human laws we have the option to disobey. Cosmic laws always apply.
Not knowing is an expression of the taoist principle of tzu jan: self arising or naturalness where action emerges of itself, like breathing. We do not question at every breath, yet we can be present at every breath.
Not entering into action with intellectual understanding is essential to the success of the proposed work which should begin in 2024, as soon as we can meet.
Don’t be concerned with your capacity, your ability. Every one of you can contribute, can successfully do the tasks that will be proposed. There is a window of opportunity which is prescribed, there is a timescale.
We are overwhelmed with information and encouragement to act to do this or to do that. Among the more publicly visible issues inviting action is the issue around climate change. We are regularly exposed to the various scientific or less scientific reasons why we should act. We have even been given timescales.
If you look at sociopolitical issues such as migrants seeking asylum, this generates motivation to act. Those people who become migrants are motivated and they act accordingly. Politicians and their supporters are motivated by the fear of an influx of people from a different culture to act. One movement of people with two very different motivations.
If we were writing or presenting an academic paper, we might go through a whole list of topics that motivate people to act. So I would ask you now to just hold in your mind some of that information, some of those campaigns, all those things that we have are being adverted to regardless of the significance, but all fall within the same context: awareness of circumstances which motivate human beings to act. So please be completely convinced that each of us, without exception is motivated to act at some stage as a result of some information or some circumstances. Even to the extent of the choice of toothpaste. The choice of insurance, a pension, a job.
There is a higher context where it is not necessary to know specifically why at this stage you are invited to act. The invitation does not come from me although I make it. Let’s say it comes from a very high source of compassionate function.
The prescribed activities will support the benefit of all beings. We cannot know the extent or the nature of that benefit. You may also discover the sources, the specific lineage of this proposal. It is an honourable lineage, a venerable lineage, the activities prescribed are honourable and worthy. It is not a secret, yet before it is disclosed, certain things need to be in place, many of them are already in place.
It is significant how you come to engage in the activities. Specifically in this context is that you have sufficient confidence and trust so that initially is it sufficient simply to volunteer to take part, to contribute, to support the noble cause.
We give confidence and trust daily each time we take a prescription from a doctor or buy ticket for a train: we trust that the prescription will help. We trust the train will arrive and leave at the appointed time. We don’t know the details, we just accept.
The higher the confidence or level of trust the greater the impact of your contributions will be.
In dharma practice of any tradition, not questioning an instruction is a sign of that trust. It is also a sign that one is listening, less and less to one’s mental process. Not asking why not needing to know why gives us a taste of freedom, but also delivers us to a complete understanding of every question without any answers.
The activities are practical. I’ve already intimated they employ creativity, making of things producing of things. Very specific things. Things which acquire a sacred nature because of how they are produced and continued. The way in which the connectivity and the trust evolves in a cohesive way to produce the activities is the sacredness, a taste of non duality.
By chance there has been a convergence. What that convergence means is that our presence as a single-collective body has converged with certain instructions which were given many hundreds of years ago.
Some of you who have studied recited and written the diamond Sutra will already know that in the past, texts and instructions were given for a future age. And by chance it is possible for us to accept the responsibility to undertake these activities. Please understand it is not simply a matter of prescribing the activities to do certain things. An element of trust and effort is called for to overcome habitual [karmic] obstacles in our lives.
if you have not contributed or have been on edge of the 100 Days, your motivation to engage in this part of the work is what brings one of those secret elements. Those of us who are active we are the decoy. Those who are not active, you have the opportunity to increase the energy of motivational action.
What I envisage is that we meet we could be as one or as several groups in different locations if need be.
Historically, they have been so many occasions where a little hindsight would have changed the course of history. We have hindsight now as a result of the grace and compassion of the source of these instructions.
We enter this process not needing to know simply to be of service.
There is every possibility that together with others unknown who are also undertaking this work, we will continue to enjoy the benefits of precious human life.