Walk for peace

Since last month soon after retuning from my trip to Nepal and India, I've been following the daily progress on the Walk of Peace involving some 20 Theravadin monks - and a dog named Aloka - in the United States. What makes the Walk of Peace so arresting is not the immense scale of the walk but the way it unfolds almost without explanation. Twenty monks in saffron robes walking along highways and rural roads, day after day, from Texas towards Washington, DC, is not something most Americans expect to encounter in the course of their ordinary life. There are no banners, no speeches, no appeals shouted through loudhailers. The message arrives on foot at walking pace, and asks nothing except to be noticed.

The journey began in October 2025 at the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center in Fort Worth, led by Bhante Pannakara, a former IT engineer from Vietnam, and from the outset it was conceived as an act of presence rather than persuasion. Over roughly 2,300 miles, crossing Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia, the monks have moved steadily eastward through towns and countryside, through rain, shine or snow. Their symbolically potent destination is the White House, where they are expected to arrive in mid-February 2026.

What they carry with them is deliberately spare. There are no sermons delivered at street corners, no leaflets handed out. The monks walk largely in silence, relying on mindfulness and the rhythm of their steps. Food and shelter come from the spontaneous generosity of strangers along the way. In an age of constant messaging and aggressive visibility, the refusal to explain oneself loudly becomes part of the meaning. Peace, compassion and non-violence are not demanded by the monks. Instead, they are acted out for all to see.

Walking with them is a stray dog named Aloka, who has quietly become the most recognisable figure of the pilgrimage. Aloka’s story began far from America, in Calcutta, India, where the dog first attached itself to Bhante Pannakara and began following him on his walk to Bodhgaya. It was not trained or summoned; it simply stayed. Over time, that companionship endured, and Aloka was eventually brought to Texas, where it settled into life at the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center. When the Walk of Peace began, Aloka joined without ceremony, padding along highways and back roads, sometimes trotting ahead as if scouting the way, more often keeping pace beside the monks, step by step, mile after mile. The dog neither chants nor teaches, yet its presence is powerful enough: loyalty without ownership, movement without destination, trust without words. For many who encounter or follow the pilgrimage, Aloka the Peace Dog has become its living emblem.

The public response suggests that something in this simplicity has struck a nerve. People line roadsides, slow their cars, offer flowers or join their palms in respect. Across social media, images of the walk have circulated far beyond the places the monks physically pass through, drawing followers from across religious and cultural lines. By January 2026, more than a million people were following the journey online, not because it promised spectacle, but because it offered a rare sense of steadiness in motion.

The walk has not been untouched by hardship and challenges. In November, a traffic accident in Texas seriously injured two monks. One of them, Bhante Dam Phommasan, later lost his leg as a result of his injuries. The incident cast a sharp light on the vulnerability inherent in such a journey, yet the walk continued, not as an act of defiance, but as a continuation of intent. Suffering, in this context, was not hidden or dramatised; it was absorbed into the larger discipline of endurance and compassion.

There is also a larger institutional story running quietly alongside the pilgrimage. The Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center has plans for an ambitious temple complex in Fort Worth, envisioned as a vast space of practice and contemplation. While the walk inevitably draws attention to this vision, the monks have been careful not to turn the journey into a fundraising exercise. The emphasis remains firmly on spiritual example rather than material outcome.

Seen as a whole, the Walk of Peace feels less like a campaign and more like a long sentence written across America one step at a time. It moves through regions marked by different histories, tensions and identities, yet refuses to take sides or offer solutions. Instead, it insists on a slower register, one in which national healing is imagined not through argument or policy, but through patience, restraint and the simple act of showing up on foot day after day.