One of my students just let me know that there is a group of Buddhist monks walking from Texas to DC in a “Walk for Peace” that has the goal of “raising awareness of peace, loving kindness, and compassion across America and the world.”
It’s a 120-day, 2,300-mile pilgrimage, and it’s attracting an ever-growing amount of attention as they share their journey on social media, and as local news picks up on the story. I’d missed this because I’m not on Facebook or Instagram, where the monks are sharing, but I discovered today that someone is posting about the walk on Mastodon. Here are a couple of Instagram posts from an enthusiastic mom from Alabama.
Two monks were injured, and one last a leg, after a car ran into them. The monks are guarded by a pilot car with flashing yellow lights, and a possibly impatient (the circumstances are unclear) pickup driver hit the car. The monks were walking on the shoulder of the road, so it’s unclear why the truck driver attempted to get around it. But in doing so he rammed the car into the monks. It’s fortunate that no one was killed.
Here is a link to the monks’ Facebook page.
The monks have a rescue dog called Aloka (Pali for “light”) with them. Aloka (“The Peace Dog”) has his own Facebook page!
This map shows the route of the peace walk and the monks’ current location.
