Buddhist monks bring 2,300-mile ‘Walk for Peace’ to Annapolis

by Christine Condon, Maryland Matters
February 13, 2026

The monks almost didn’t make it to Annapolis.

A group of two dozen Theravada Buddhist monks making a 2,300-mile journey on foot from Texas to Washington, D.C., to promote peace and mindfulness had to eliminate Maryland from their route after scheduling changes, said the Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara.

But after an invitation from Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller (D), they decided to reconsider, electrifying an otherwise routine day of business for the General Assembly, despite their reserved demeanors.

“I believe that everything happens for a reason,” Pannakara told the throngs assembled Thursday morning on Lawyers’ Mall. “At the beginning when we thought about Maryland, Maryland was on our list. And at the end, now it’s still back on the list.”

Throughout the morning, the State House complex was abuzz with monk-related conversation. Are they here yet? I heard they’re running late. Where are they walking from? Others just bemoaned the monk-induced traffic, which clogged roads into Annapolis during the morning commute — even more than usual.

When they arrived, the monks, clad in mismatched orange and red robes — a few of them shoeless even in near-freezing temperatures — wove their way silently through the crowd, using a path cleared by Maryland Capitol Police. Largely absent were the frenetic cheers that might otherwise accompany celebrity.

These were monks, after all.

Officially, the monks’ journey ended Wednesday in Washington, D.C. They were bused Thursday to Annapolis, where they walked the final mile or so from Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium to the State House. Pannakara said he initially considered making the walk round-trip, but after Thursday’s visit, the monks boarded a bus bound for Fort Worth, where their walk began in October.

“I was empty yesterday. When we enter into the Lincoln Memorial, I cried,” said Pannakara, the only monk who spoke to the crowd. “I didn’t know what to say, what to expect, what to do. I just simply walked slowly with tears.”

Anywhere between 10,000 and 12,000 people turned out to watch the monks, lining the route from the stadium to the State House, said Brandon Stoneburg, a spokesperson for the Department of General Services, which manages the State House complex.

After Pannakara’s remarks, the monks wove back through the crowd and up the State House steps, and then into both the House of Delegates and the Senate, where they were honored with proclamations. Joining them was a tan-and-white dog with pointy ears, who rested his head on the carpet in the House chamber, and nudged Senate President Bill Ferguson’s leg as he roamed the Senate. He wore a bandana reading, “Aloka The Peace Dog.”

The monks’ message is simple, Pannakara said. Society has abandoned calm in favor of chaos, simplicity in favor of materialism. If, person by person, individuals embraced mindfulness, the world might find peace, he said.

“Mindfulness is something that has been missing for a long time in this nation and in this world,” Pannakara said. “We are way too busy chasing the outside world, chasing the material, and everything else. We try to chase the world. And that is why we suffer.”

As he spoke, some clasped their hands in silent prayer, some filmed while others merely watched intently. And then Pannakara coached the assembled hundreds through a mindfulness exercise, urging them to focus on their breathing as a grounding ritual.

“Bring our concentration back to this present moment, which is each and every breath going in and out by the nostril,” he said, gently tapping his nose. “And then, when you have any type of sensation, any type of feeling within this body, same thing. Acknowledge it. Observe it, acknowledge it as feeling: Itch, numb, pain, anything. Acknowledge it. Come back here with the breathing.”

Shannon Shea, who lives in Leisure World in Montgomery County, said she traveled to Virginia to see the monks during their pilgrimage, walked alongside them several times — and, of course, petted Aloka. She took an extra day off from work, she said, to attend their last-minute visit to Annapolis.

Their arrival has changed her life, she said, especially Pannakara’s advice to wake in the morning, pull out a notepad and write “Today is going to be my peaceful day.”

“Ignore the noise and just remember that it’s all about you — how you react to everything. It’s not what people do to you. It’s how you react to what they do,” Shea said. “It’s just been amazing.”

As the monk spoke, Demont Pinder painted a brightly colored portrait in acrylics, his canvas propped on an easel. And just beneath the face, he wrote the words “Today is going to be my peaceful day.” He added the caption as Pannakara spoke — and he thinks that the monk saw his painting.

“A picture like this here represents a moment we’ll never see again, ever. I don’t think so. Not in this lifetime. For somebody to walk 2,300 miles for a sign of peace and unity,” Pinder said.

“I’m sitting here cold, but I had to get that out of my mind knowing that they walked 2,300 miles in the cold to be here,” Pinder said. “So I just wanted to document the moment in real time.”

Pannakara said he was “overwhelmed” with the support from attendees, many of whom brought flowers to hand to the monks.

“I told myself that we are not alone,” Pannakara said. “When we started out in Fort Worth, Texas, we were alone. And then after that, we’re not alone anymore. And after this walk, we are not alone.”

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.