Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘The “Walk for Peace” started in October in Fort Worth. and if all goes according to plan, the monks will have covered some 2,300 miles once they reach Washington this week. Along the way, they have delivered soft-spoken lectures to anyone who wanted to listen.

Interest in their journey intensified as word spread on social media, a reminder of something obvious: that the monks were traversing an unsettled country. Political upheaval, conflicts and humanitarian crises abroad, unaffordable living costs and the unresolved emotional toll of the pandemic had left many feeling exhausted, exasperated and struggling to fend off a sense of helplessness.

“Do you see the mess the world is in?” said Donzella Logan, 64, who had traveled by train to the suburbs outside Washington, D.C., from Blairs, Va., near the North Carolina border.

The crowds coming out for the monks have transcended racial, religious, economic, educational and geographic lines. The common thread was a belief that the monks were providing comfort. Some found it difficult to articulate why, exactly, the walk had touched them in such a profound way, but it did, offering hope and encouragement that otherwise seemed to be in short supply.

“It’s such a simple thing, just walking,” said Ms. Peters, a nursing educator who lives in Takoma Park, Md. “Look around at all the people it’s touching.”

The monk leading the walk, who goes by the name Bhikkhu Pannakara, said in one lecture that the goal was to provide a diversion from whatever was weighing on the people they passed. It would cause them to slow down, he said, “and let go of everything.”…

Bhikkhu Pannakara talked about how pain and setbacks were a part of living, but they should not let that overwhelm them. “I understand suffering, how terrible it is,” he said. “I’ve been there.” He asked them to try to create peace in their lives, and then to protect it.’ (from the New York Times)