By Lyn Fine

Walking Meditation

Take my hand.
We will walk.
We will only walk.
We will walk for ourselves.
We will walk for everyone.
Always hand in hand.
We will enjoy our walk.
Without thinking of arriving anywhere.
Walk peacefully.
Walk happily.
Our walk is a peace walk.
Our walk is a happiness walk.

Then we learn that there is no peace walk;
that peace is the walk;
that there is no happiness walk;
that happiness is the walk.
We walk for ourselves.
We walk for everyone
always hand in hand.

Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom under our feet.
Kiss the earth with your feet.
Print on earth your love and happiness.

Earth will be safe. When we feel in us enough safety.

– Thich Nhat Hanh

Global Peacewalks began in Jerusalem, in New York City, and in Berkeley, California, on Mothers Day in May, 2002. Now there are twenty-five to thirty communities who have participated in these walks.

We gather in a public place on the third Sunday of each month. Instead of carrying banners and chanting slogans, we walk slowly and silently. This helps us step into the source of understanding and compassion within us, and hold everyone with care. We are walking to offer compassion, and to learn that love is possible as a genuine way of life, even in the presence of rage and fear. Violence in any form is a tragedy that stops all of us from sharing a life of harmony and abundance. Coming together to embody peace can restore our hope and vision. True and sustainable peace is a process and can be created by peaceful means.

A Long Tradition

Walking for peace has a long tradition, and includes Maha Ghosananda’s walking in Cambodia, Peace Pilgrim’s walking in the USA, and Gandhi’s walking in India. In Israel the Vipassana mindfulness community has sponsored week-long silent walks which have drawn hundreds of people.

The idea for these Third Sunday Global Peacewalks arose during a conversation with Miki Kashtan, a trainer in Nonviolent Communication, an Israeli living in the United States, and a friend. We were both feeling sad about the polarization that was occurring in so many of the demonstrations that claimed to be working for peace. We wanted to offer a way to connect globally and to generate peaceful energy. Walking meditation seemed a wonderful skillful means.

Beginning on Mother’s Day was quite auspicious, as it helped us reconnect with the peacemaking origin of Mother’s Day. In the 1870s in the USA, Julia Ward Howe called on the women of the world to “leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.” “Let them meet first, as women,” she wrote, “to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as the means whereby the great human family can live in peace...”

Start a Peacewalk

Any Sangha or individual is welcome to organize a walk.

Lyn Fine, True Goodness, was ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh as a Dharmacarya in 1994. She lives in Berkeley, California, and offers guidance to many Sanghas around the world.