Like many, I've been moved by the Buddhist monks who are walking from Texas to D.C. for peace. I even talked about them in a sermon in early January, as something giving me hope.
Today they'll be at the National Cathedral, and I'm not sure of their time in D.C. beyond that. It's hard for me to imagine any officials from the federal government meeting with them, the way that state governing people along the way have, but I'm willing to be happily surprised.
In this post on Diana Butler Bass's Substack, she gives the monks' answer to why they are walking. I want to make sure I have this, should I want to find the words later, so let me post them here:
"Some people may doubt that our walk can bring peace to the world — and we understand that doubt completely. But everything that has ever mattered began with something impossibly small. A single seed. A first mindful breath. A quiet decision to take one step, then another.
Our walking itself cannot create peace. But when someone encounters us — whether by the roadside, online, or through a friend — when our message touches something deep within them, when it awakens the peace that has always lived quietly in their own heart — something sacred begins to unfold.
That person carries something forward they didn’t have before, or perhaps something they had forgotten was there. They become more mindful in their daily life — more present with each breath, more aware of each moment. They speak a little more gently to their child. They listen more patiently to their partner. They extend kindness to a stranger who needed it desperately.
And that stranger, touched by unexpected compassion, carries it forward to someone else. And it continues — ripple by ripple, heart by heart, moment by moment — spreading outward in ways none of us will ever fully witness, creating more peace in the world than we could possibly measure.
This is our contribution — not to force peace upon the world, but to help nurture it, one awakened heart at a time. Not the Walk for Peace alone can do this, but all of us together — everyone who has been walking with us in spirit, everyone who feels something stir within them when they encounter this journey, everyone who decides that cultivating peace within themselves matters.
One step becomes two. Two become a thousand. A thousand become countless. And slowly, gently, persistently — not through grand gestures but through ten thousand small acts of love — we can help make the world more peaceful.
This is our hope. This is our offering. This is why we walk.
May you and all beings be well, happy, and at peace."
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