When Peace Walks By

I didn’t go to see the Walk for Peace in person.

I thought about it. I have the means, the ability, and the car that could take me to wherever the monks would pass through on their walk from Fort Worth to Washington. I could have stood on the side of the road with the thousands of others, waiting for that moment when orange robes round the corner and Aloka the peace dog trots into view.

But when I sat with the decision in meditation, what I heard was: You can do more from here.

So last night, while Buddhist monks walked the final miles into our nation’s capital, I sat with my “sangha” – the students in our new School of Noetic Alchemy and meditated for them. We offered our practice as support for their message. We became still so they could keep moving.

I have come to realize, I don’t need to see them in person to feel the power of what they’re doing.

In fact, working on this writing right now, trying to name what this walk means to me, trying to understand why thousands of people are weeping when these monks pass by, this is my walking with them.

THEIR JOURNEY

They’ve been walking for weeks now. Twenty to thirty miles a day. Eating only what people give them. Sleeping where they’re offered shelter. This is ancient practice, older than any of us, and yet it looks radical in 2026 America.

The lead monk bhikkhu gives one or two talks each day, answers questions about the Buddhist practice, about Aloka, about why they’re doing this. But his message is simple, almost absurdly so:

Today will be my peaceful day.

That’s it. That’s the teaching. Set your intention. Take responsibility for your own peace. Then walk it forward.

And people are weeping when they see them.

I’ve been thinking about why. I’ve been watching the videos, reading the posts from people who stood on roadsides in small Texas towns and big Virginia cities, and I think they’re crying for different reasons, all true at once.

Some are sensitive to energy. They can feel what peace looks like when it walks by. It’s kinesthetic. It moves through the body before the mind can name it.

Some are weeping because a monk stopped, handed them a flower, looked them in the eye. And in that moment, they were seen. Fully. Without agenda. Without judgment. Without anything else happening except that one human acknowledging another.

Some had lost hope that peace was even possible. The news, the anger, the endless scroll of outrage and division—it had convinced them that this was just how things are now. And then these monks appeared on the horizon, walking peacefully, and thousands gathered to see them, and suddenly hope cracked open again.

Some are talking to strangers while they wait. Republicans standing next to Democrats. Different faiths, different backgrounds, all gathered for the same reason. And they’re having these revelations: We’re more alike than different. We’re one species on one planet. We’ve just forgotten.

And some—maybe most—are releasing what they’ve been holding. Years of fear. Stored-up anger. Hatreds they didn’t know were living in their chest. The monks walk by and something opens, something lets go, something remembers that peace was always there, underneath everything, waiting.

MY JOURNEY

I grew up Christian. A Methodist by baptism, a Presbyterian by training, and then an Episcopalian by choice, to be specific. And I learned early that the people teaching me were often saying one thing and doing another. Even as a kid, I could feel the hypocrisy, the gap between the words on Sunday and the actions of some of the people, the rest of the week

When I was in my twenties, newly married, I came to the priest who had performed my marriage ceremony with some serious problems. She told me she’d heard rumors. She said she never should have married me. That I’d used her.

I left the church that day.

I then I spent years searching for something else. And when I found Buddhism, what struck me most was this: it asked me to take up the practices myself.

Christianity, as I’d been taught it, required an intermediary. I was born fallen, already flawed, carrying original sin. Someone else had to stand between me and the divine to redeem me.

Buddhism never said those things. It said: Here is the source of suffering. Here is the way out. Here are the practices. Now go do them.

That was revolutionary. Agency. That’s the word I keep coming back to.

I found Gil Fronsdal’s podcast, Audio Dharma, from Spirit Rock, teaching the foundations of insight meditation, Vipassan, and I’d listen while driving to work. I started a formal sitting practice. And slowly, everything changed. Not because someone told me what to believe, but because I discovered for myself that my own thoughts were creating nearly all the turmoil in my life. That my reactions to things, not the things themselves, were making me unhappy.

This is what the Buddha taught 2,500 years ago. And this is what these monks are walking now.

WHAT’S ARE THE CONNECTIONS?

I think Christianity became overcomplicated. I say this with respect: I admire Pope Francis, I see the good that many Christians do in the world, I’ve met pastors and priests who truly walk their talk. But somewhere along the way, the religion splintered into a thousand interpretations, rules, traditions, and denominations, all claiming to know the right way. But how can there be “one right way” when we are individuals and have been given the gift of free will?

Buddhism has stayed simple. The core teachings of the Pali Canon. The invitation to practice. The understanding that you have to do the work yourself—no one can do it for you.

And I think that’s what people are crying for when they see these monks.

They’re seeing something in these Buddhist practitioners that’s missing in much of modern Christianity: the demonstration, not the sermon. The being instead of the preaching.

Gandhi supposedly said it: Be the change you want to see in the world. But actually his words were, “We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”

Jesus did it too. He walked from town to town, ate what people gave him, slept where he was offered shelter, and taught by his presence as much as his words. I believe it was captured in the gospel as, “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

These monks are doing the same thing.

They’re not telling us what to do. They’re showing us what peace looks like with every step they take. They are a mirror for us to see the core of who we are, the light that lives inside of us, and to shine what is ours to inspire others in this beautiful, messy, interconnected and interdependent world.

WHAT’S HAPPENS WHEN THE WALK ENDS?

I decided to put the monks’ focus phrase, “Today will be my peaceful day,” on my iPhone screen. I see it every time I pick up my phone, which is embarrassingly often. It’s become part of my morning practice, along with meditation, along with setting intentions, along with all the ways I’ve learned to cultivate peace inside myself first.

Because that’s the thing: when we take up the practices for ourselves, we transform ourselves. And then everything around us changes. The kinder we become inside, the more it radiates outward. The gentler we are with our own suffering, the more compassion we have for others.

This is what the monks are demonstrating with their Walk for Peace. This is why thousands are gathering. This is why an interfaith service is happening today at Washington National Cathedral, the monks and nuns and pastors and priests and rabbis and imams all coming together.

Not to argue theology. Not to convert anyone. Just to witness and celebrate the presence of peace being walked into our nation’s capitol by humble monks.

Just to help us remember that we can choose peace for ourselves. Every day. Every moment.

When the walk ends, the practice does not have to stop. We can simply carry the memory of peace forward with the practice the monks have given us. Each day to begin again with a simple phrase:

Today will be my peaceful day.

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Dr. Mara Linaberger is the Secretary of the Board of the Good Knight Network, and a planning partner in the creation of the School of Noetic Alchemy, a new project of GKN.

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