When walking becomes a message

For the last hundred-plus days, a group of about 20 Buddhist monks has been cutting a path from the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center in Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C., in the "Walk for Peace," sharing messages of mindfulness and gratitude along the way. Posted to Instagram and Facebook, their reflections - often spare, but frequently poetic - ruminate on the nature of suffering and invite viewers from across the country and around the world to walk with them in spirit, if not along the physical route.

But many have joined them across the American South. It is a trek the monks have made before in other places. The current Walk for Peace has cut across geography, politics and belief systems and will culminate Feb. 10-11, after which the monks will take a bus back to Texas, stop a few miles short and lead one final, open-to-all walk back to the temple. The message lies less in the final destination and the 2,300 miles they will have traversed than in the way the monks have chosen to embody the concept of peace: visibly, deliberately and open to all.

That quality, and the community reaction to the walk, seems to reflect a long-standing Buddhist concept known as "expedient means," said Stephanie Balkwill, director of UCLA's Center for Buddhist Studies.

"In Buddhism, there's a deep doctrinal commitment to teaching in ways that meet people where they are," Balkwill said. "You don't have to teach through doctrine or argument. You can teach through action, through the body, through example - anything that helps people understand suffering and how to alleviate it."

The venerable monks, who hail from hail from the U.S., Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, have walked through inclement weather - one of the worst winter storms in years - and have been protected by law enforcement officers along the way. Crowds of thousands have shared their route for a time, bearing fruit, flowers, handmade signs, original art, even tubes of lip balm, a gift for the monks as they confront the blistering cold.

This walk, and its message has become a moving network of care. The monks have been hosted for rest in churches representing a wide range of faith traditions, welcomed to state houses and universities for peace talks, and accompanied by a faithful canine companion named Aloka, who has become a social media celebrity in his own right. Medical professionals from multiple states have volunteered to tend to the monks' health and to Aloka, a former street dog who attached himself to the monks on a similar walk in India some years ago.

In an Instagram message shared on the 100th day of walking, the group shared:

"Everyone who has walked with us - whether you stood by the roadside with a smile, followed from afar, or held us in your heart - you are not just supporters. You are peace walkers too. You also walk for peace when you choose mindfulness, when you speak with kindness, and when you practice patience. You walk it when you remember to breathe with mindfulness and let peace guide your steps."

Balkwill noted that many Buddhist traditions place strong emphasis on recognizing the limits of one's own perceptions. Rather than engaging in entrenched debates over right and wrong, practitioners are encouraged to discipline the mind, bypass the ego and model ethical ways of being in the world.

"There's an understanding that we're all operating from partial perspectives," she said. "When we get locked into arguing those perceptions, we lose sight of our shared condition, which is suffering."

Buddhist practices and teachings offer what Balkwill described as a "Dharma gate"- an entry point that doesn't require prior knowledge or belief. The Walk for Peace might be such an entry point for people who encounter or learn about the monks and their journey.

"Anything that inspires people to think differently about suffering, about care for others, about how we live together - that's a valid path," she said. "You don't have to practice or even understand Buddhism to be moved by it."

This emphasis on lived experience and human connection shapes how Buddhism is studied and taught at UCLA.

Balkwill teaches large general education courses introducing students to Buddhism and Chinese religious traditions. Students come from a wide range of cultural and religious backgrounds, she said, including Asian American students who may be seeking to understand family histories, international students encountering familiar traditions in new contexts, and others simply curious about a philosophy they've encountered through books, social media or popular culture.

"What I see again and again is that students are very hungry for human connection," Balkwill said. "They want ideas they can connect to, not just intellectually, but in their own lives."

That impulse is reflected in the work of UCLA's Center for Buddhist Studies, which has increasingly emphasized public scholarship alongside traditional academic research.

In addition to hosting scholars from around the world, the center is home to a major archival project documenting the history of Buddhism in Southern California and the United States. The archive tells intertwined stories of migration, community formation and resilience, including materials from Japanese Buddhist monks incarcerated during World War II.

"It's an archive about Buddhism, but it's also an archive about people," Balkwill said. "You see handwriting, photographs, notebooks. You meet families. These are human stories, and they matter."