Walk for Peace leader Bhikkhu Pannakara delivers 45-minute Peace Talk in Henrico

About 100 people filled the Virginia Randolph Education Center on Mountain Road to hear a 45-minute Peace Talk that urged practical steps for cultivating calm at home and in community. Bhikkhu Pannakara framed peace as a daily mindset and offered simple practices visitors could use immediately.

Pannakara centered the talk on breath-awareness. “Add awareness to each and every breath going in,” Pannakara said. “Each and every breath going out. You breathe in. You're aware of that. Breath going in. Breathe out. Aware of that breath going out. Pay full attention to each and every breath.” He said his breath is what he focuses on as he walks and held a moment of silence so people could listen to their hearts.

Audience members included devotees from the nearby Vien Giac Buddhist Temple, volunteers with the Walk for Peace, Henrico County officials, media and other Virginians drawn by the procession. Members of Vien Giac posed for photos before the talk. Henrico County Supervisor Misty Roundtree described the visit as an emotional, rare experience of diversity and community coming together, and Tyrone Nelson, who is also a pastor, said the monks’ themes connected to his faith. The Henrico County Board of Supervisors presented Pannakara with a proclamation and small gifts during the stop.

The Peace Talk was one stop on a larger Walk for Peace that began in Fort Worth, Texas this past October and is headed to Washington, D.C. The trek is described as roughly 2,300 miles. In Henrico the monks trekked a 20-mile route through snow-covered roads, standing out in saffron and orange layered robes as hundreds of spectators watched the quiet procession in near silence. In Chesterfield County, hundreds lined Route 1 during a lunch stop.

Pannakara’s instruction moved from personal practice to family and community effects. “If we practice to have peace for ourself we now can spread that to our family members by that energy by them looking at us happy and peaceful everyday. They will also be happy and peaceful,” Paññākāra said. He urged changing the internal narrative about difficulty: “It’s difficult when we have that thought, ‘Oh, this is so difficult we cannot have peace.’ When you have that mindset, you will never have peace, but if you have that mindset, today is going to be my peaceful day. I promise you, no one can mess it up.”

Other regional stops underscored local engagement. At Randolph-Macon College in Ashland the monks gathered with 18 monks and about 2,000 attendees, received ceremonial pins from officials and heard a poem followed by a chant blessing the gathering. Spectators in multiple communities said the walk and its message of forgiveness and calm had personal impact. “We’ve kept up with their messages on peace and forgiveness, and it’s something I’m trying to incorporate in my daily life, and it’s been pretty life-changing,” Sara Alexander said. Another spectator said, “I just feel like we just need the peace. There’s so much violence going on in this world right now... I will walk with them.”

For readers looking for a practical takeaway, the talk offered an accessible entry point: steady attention to breath, a promise to choose a peaceful day, and small acts of kindness that ripple outward. The Walk for Peace continues north toward Washington, D.C., carrying a plain instruction that attendees in Henrico took home, begin with the breath and let that calm shape how you meet the day.