We Are All On A Walk

A group of Buddhist monks is walking for peace from Texas to the White House in Washington, DC. Their walk has arrived in central Virginia, and I've seen many friends who've attended the walks posting pictures and stories of the experience.

My hope for this walk is that its real mission won't get lost in our own wishful thinking - our own desires - desires for world peace. Because I'm here to break it to you: world peace is never going to happen.

That is not hopeless, that's reality. Because world peace doesn't happen when the world turns peaceful, it happens when all the hearts of the world embrace peace. History laughs at that possibility. Even the bible I follow says at the end of the world their will be those who elected peace and those who did not.

Seems to me that is a division that has defined the world from day one to this day.

In a written statement, Bhikkhu Pannakara, spiritual leader of the Walk for Peace, said, "We walk not to protest, but to awaken the peace that already lives within each of us."

And in a blog post written by the monks on the walk, they say, "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."

The monks get the path to peace. It's reaching inside the humanity of others where peace is born, where peace lives, and they walk to invite it out of them. To invite others to begin their own peace walk.

We live in a dark world. It always has been and always will be. But that darkness isn't and never has been a reflection of the world, it's a reflection of the hearts that populate it.

I love what these monks are doing. Modeling peace, not trying to force it. The world has long tried that approach - forcing individual versions and crafted frameworks of peace on the rest of the world.

Surely it's as obvious to you as it is to me that this has never worked.

The monks went on to say in their blog post, " "This is our contribution—not to force peace upon the world, but to help nurture it, one awakened heart at a time."

Peace will never be forced upon the hearts of the masses, peace comes to the masses through the awakening of individual hearts. Desires for world peace will always start with inward reflection, not outward strategies.

I am wishing the monks well through central Virginia and beyond. Not in the name of world peace, but with hopes that folks along the path of their walk will accept their invitation to experience peace within.

I cannot reasonable hope the world will ever experience peace, but I can surely hope the people I encounter on my walk through it will. For we each have a walk, one that walks as an invitation to peace or one that does not.

Either way, we are all on a walk.