The walk has gained national attention even as it has faced danger: a truck struck the group’s escort vehicle near Dayton, Texas, last month, injuring two monks — one seriously enough to require helicopter transport and multiple surgeries.
ATLANTA — A group of about two dozen Buddhist monks, walking from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C., in a cross-country peace march, reached Georgia on day 66 of their journey, the Associated Press reported Dec. 30.
The monks planned to walk from the town of Morrow to Decatur, on the eastern edge of Atlanta, that day, and invited the public to a Peace Gathering in Decatur that afternoon.
As MSI previously reported, the walk began Oct. 26 and has continued despite serious injury to two members — part of a months-long journey the group is making through 10 states to highlight Buddhism’s tradition of peace activism. Read MSI’s earlier coverage of the walk.
Online following
The trek has drawn a substantial online audience. More than 400,000 people follow the group on Facebook, where it posts regular progress reports, poetry and reflections.
“We do not walk alone. We walk together with every person whose heart has opened to peace, whose spirit has chosen kindness, whose daily life has become a garden where understanding grows,” the group posted recently.
The monks travel with a dog named Aloka — a Sanskrit word meaning enlightenment — who has generated its own social media following under the hashtag #AlokathePeaceDog.
Highway accident
The march has not been without danger. Last month, as the monks walked on the shoulder of a highway near Dayton, Texas, outside Houston, a truck struck the group’s escort vehicle, which was traveling with its hazard lights on.
Dayton Interim Police Chief Shane Burleigh said the truck driver “didn’t notice how slow the vehicle was going, tried to make an evasive maneuver to drive around the vehicle, and didn’t do it in time.” The truck, Burleigh said, “struck the escort vehicle in the rear left, pushed the escort into two of the monks.”
One monk sustained what Burleigh described as “substantial leg injuries” and was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Houston. A second monk with less serious injuries was taken by ambulance to a hospital in suburban Houston.
A spokeswoman for the group said the monk with serious injuries was expected to undergo a series of surgeries to heal a broken bone, but that the prognosis for recovery was good.
Route ahead
In coming days, the group planned to pass through Athens, Georgia, then the North Carolina cities of Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh, and Richmond, Virginia, before arriving in Washington, D.C.
Buddhism traces its origins to the teachings of Gautama Buddha, believed to have lived in northern India and to have attained enlightenment between the 6th and 4th centuries B.C. Its modern tradition of peace activism has been championed by figures including the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh, who applied core principles of compassion and nonviolence to political and social-justice causes.
Reporting by the Associated Press (Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Deepa Bharath in Los Angeles); compiled by Main Street Independent.