WASHINGTON (RNS) — Thousands of onlookers gathered at Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday (Feb. 10) to see and hear from the venerable Buddhist monks who have completed a 108-day, 2,300-mile walking journey from Texas to the nation’s capital. Surrounded by leaders from several faith traditions, including Washington Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde, who began the gathering with a peace prayer from St. Francis, the monks talked about how the practice of compassion can transcend religious differences.

“In front of you all, you can see all religions’ leaders here together for the same mission: peace,” said Venerable Bhikkhu Paññākāra, the monks’ leader, who spoke for a half-hour on a sunny day. “This is the first time to me, that we are working together. We are walking together on this path to find peace for ourself, to share that to our nation and the world.”

At the event, called “A Sacred Stop on the Walk for Peace,” the 19 monks from the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center in Fort Worth were welcomed by a cheering crowd of people young and old, some of whom had waited for hours to secure a spot close to the monks. Many held flowers or signs, while others sported homemade “Walk for Peace” garments. 

The monks are part of a Vietnamese Theravada Buddhist tradition and practice Vipassana meditation — a technique taught by the Buddha in ancient India to focus on mind-body connection.

The walk, which began on Oct. 26, 2025, was “not to bring you any peace,” said Paññākāra, “but to raise the awareness of peace so that you can unlock that box and free it.”

While calling mindfulness the “key to peace,” the monk said that it is “not about Buddhism.”

“All you need to do is just practice mindfulness to unlock that box where you have kept peace and happiness inside and locked it up and then left it somewhere,” he said. “Now it’s your job. It’s your duty, to find it and unlock it. You’re the only one who can do this, not the venerable monks, not the reverends, nor anybody else, but you.”

Paññākāra offered both humor and practical tips to incorporate mindfulness in a world where distractions abound. (“Please don’t touch your phone when you wake up in the morning” was one.) He led the crowd in a short mindfulness practice, asking the gathering to take three deep breaths with their hands over their hearts in unison. In a booming echo, the crowd shouted the mantra that was given to them by Paññākāra to recite each morning: “Today is going to be my peaceful day.”

“It might take seven days, seven months, or seven years to find inner peace,” said Paññākāra, but “each and every single one of us, we have our own path, and please remember, don’t expect our path to be smooth and flat.”

Over their more-than-three-month journey, the monks have faced treacherous winter weather, roadblocks and even a serious accident that caused one monk to permanently lose his leg. But they also received food, flowers, prayers and hospitality from well-wishers along the way. 

Kimberly Bassett, secretary of state for the District of Columbia, presented the monks with an official proclamation. “Today may mark the end of a 2,300-mile walk, but it’s not the end of our journey for peace,” she said. “Your pilgrimage has brought people together across cities, states and communities, all faiths, all backgrounds, all of us together, united in the shared belief that we can choose healing over harm, understanding over division and peace over conflict. Your every step carried a message, and that message now lives here with all of us.”

As the monks filed into the cathedral for a meeting with a small group of interfaith leaders, a pianist played the song “Prayer for Peace.”

Budde greeted the monks, saying, “I want to especially greet all of you, our interfaith friends and siblings of one human family, and it is such a privilege for us to gather in a spirit of humility and the opportunity to learn from one another.”

The monks fielded questions from a handful of faith leaders, who asked about how to help the next generations, how to think about Christian nationalism and how to reconcile stillness with a duty to fight for justice.

“In the situation we are facing in this country and around the world, inner peace is certainly an essential requirement,” said one 81-year-old monk, who pointed to various wars and to civil rights injustices that he himself had seen take place. “It’s almost a reign of terror where people are being terrified. Schoolchildren afraid to go to school from fear that they’re going to be grabbed off the streets and sent to a prison or detention camp. Workers afraid to go to work, families being torn apart.

“So, it seems that we have to balance this inner peace with what I call a strong commitment to conscientious compassion, that is compassion inspired by a sense of conscience, a responsibility for the welfare of all our fellow citizens, all the residents of this country, and indeed, a universal compassion for all human beings around this world.”

Asked about religious extremism, one monk answered, “All religion(s) teach people how to live, how to be a better person in this society, how to support society, and how to support this country, our country where we live in. Now that we are in this church and so much faith leaders joining us, this world should be like this. For me, it should be like this. There’s no need to be separate or any division at all whatsoever.”

Many who came to see the monks had been following their journey online. Susan Dorr and two friends drove 11 hours from Camden, Maine, to follow the monks as they walked from nearby American University, where they met students and professors, to the cathedral and on to their next stop, George Washington University.

“Believing in things, belief systems are divisive and just put up walls between people,” said Dorr, who said she doesn’t identify with any faith. “But there’s no belief system attached to mindfulness. The simplicity of it and the indisputable truth of it, I love that they make it so like, ‘This is the thing that we can do, that anybody could do at any time,’ is what is really compelling about it. We don’t have to believe in anything.”

Dominga Hobbs, who lives in Colombia and lost her husband in the past year, said: “I’m here for me, for my family, and to honor the monks for this extraordinary effort. My husband believed in peace, and I feel that he’s here with us.”

Danny Latifzadeh, a 27-year-old from Bethesda, Maryland, said he believes mindfulness is an antidote to the world’s constant distraction, and perhaps to the generation’s turn away from organized religion. “I’m not particularly religious, but this experience seems like one that could hopefully cross a lot of boundaries between people that are of different cultures and religions, because especially with their messages, it transcends Scripture, it transcends generations, ages, messages, and no matter what time period in history,” he said. 

The monks continued on to George Washington University and will head to the Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday, where they will ask Congress to recognize Buddha’s day of birth and enlightenment as a federal holiday.