{"id":105298,"date":"2025-12-30T20:07:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T20:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/105298\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T20:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T20:07:11","slug":"buddhist-monks-persist-in-peace-walk-to-washington-d-c-nbc-5-dallas-fort-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/105298\/","title":{"rendered":"Buddhist monks persist in peace walk to Washington D.C. \u2013 NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of Buddhist monks<\/a> is persevering in their walking trek across much of the U.S. to promote peace, even after two of its members were injured when a truck hit their escort vehicle.<\/p>\n

After starting their walk in Fort Worth, Texa<\/a>s, on Oct. 26, the group of about two dozen monks has made it to Georgia<\/a> as they continue on a path to Washington, D.C.,<\/a> highlighting Buddhism’s long tradition of activism for peace.<\/p>\n

The group planned to walk its latest segment through Georgia on Tuesday from the town of Morrow to Decatur, on the eastern edge of Atlanta. Marking day 66 of the walk, the group invited the public to a Peace Gathering in Decatur Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The monks and their loyal dog Aloka<\/a> are traveling through 10 states en route to Washington, D.C. In coming days, they plan to pass through or very close to Athens, Georgia; the North Carolina cities of Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh; and Richmond, Virginia, on their way to the nation\u2019s capital city.<\/p>\n

The group has amassed a huge audience on social media, with more than 400,000 followers on Facebook. Aloka has its own hashtag, #AlokathePeaceDog.<\/a><\/p>\n

The group’s Facebook page is frequently updated with progress reports, inspirational notes and poetry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Buddhist<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tMelissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMelissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Buddhist monk Panna Kara with dog named Aloka, along with other monks from the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center in Fort Worth, who are undertaking a 2,300 mile pilgrimage of Walk for Peace, rest after arriving to a welcome ceremony at Hong Kong City Mall in Houston Friday, Nov. 14, 2025. <\/p>\n

The trek has not been without danger. Last month outside Houston, the monks were walking on the side of a highway near Dayton, Texas, when their escort vehicle, which had its hazard lights on, was hit by a truck, Dayton Interim Police Chief Shane Burleigh said.<\/p>\n

The truck \u201cdidn\u2019t notice how slow the vehicle was going, tried to make an evasive maneuver to drive around the vehicle, and didn\u2019t do it in time,\u201d Burleigh said at the time. \u201cIt struck the escort vehicle in the rear left, pushed the escort into two of the monks.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the monks had \u201csubstantial leg injuries\u201d and was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Houston, Burleigh said. The other monk with less serious injuries was taken by ambulance to another hospital in suburban Houston. The monk who sustained the serious leg injuries was expected to have a series of surgeries to heal a broken bone, but his prognosis for recovery was good, a spokeswoman for the group said.<\/p>\n

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy that evolved from the teachings of Gautama Buddha, a prince turned teacher who is believed to have lived in northern India and attained enlightenment between the 6th and 4th centuries B.C. The religion spread to other parts of Asia after his death and came to the West in the 20th century. The Buddha taught that the path to end suffering and become liberated from the cycle of birth, death and reincarnation, includes the practice of non-violence, mental discipline through meditation and showing compassion for all beings.<\/p>\n

While Buddhism has branched into a number of sects over the centuries, its rich tradition of peace activism continues. Its social teaching was pioneered by figures like the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh, who have applied core principles of compassion and non-violence to political, environmental and social justice as well as peace-building efforts around the world.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Associated Press Writers Jeff Martin in Atlanta and Deepa Bharath in Los Angeles contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of Buddhist monks is persevering in their walking trek across much of the U.S. to promote…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,1968],"class_list":{"0":"post-105298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arlington","8":"tag-arlington","9":"tag-arlington-headlines","10":"tag-arlington-news","11":"tag-religion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}