This paper examines two passages from the Unimpeded Sound Tantra (Sgra thal ‘gyur)—a key Great Perfection (Rdzogs chen) Buddhist text—and one of its earliest known 12th-century commentaries. These passages describe a distinctive Buddhist practice of sky divination, in which practitioners interpret signs in the elements (earth, water, fire, and wind) manifesting as omens in the sky. These practices are said to reveal insights into a community’s collective karma, understood as its reservoirs of virtue and likelihood of positive or negative destinies.
The theme of community emerges through multiple interwoven examples: in a narrative describing the interdependence between human and more-than-human beings; in human engagements with elemental ecologies; and in the relational role of the contemplative practitioner who performs divinations for others. This paper reflects on how these materials conceptualize shared karma across human, non-human, and more-than-human relationships, presenting contemplative life as embedded in overlapping social domains.