Walk for Peace in Clarendon (Arlington, Virginia) by Buddhist monks from the Hương Đạo Vipassana Bhavana Center

I had the honor of seeing the monks of the Hương Đạo Vipassana Bhavana Center on their Walk for Peace as they passed through the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia. Aloka the Peace Dog, the dog travelling with them, was not on the pilgrimage when I saw them. 

The sidewalks along Washington Boulevard were quite crowded with people wishing the monks well on their journey.

It was a nice day, finally warming up a bit to around 2 C (about 35 F).

The Walk for Peace is a long-distance pilgrimage in the United States initiated by Buddhist monks from the Hương Đạo Vipassana Bhavana Center in Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C., promoting peace, compassion, and nonviolence. The walk began on October 26, 2025, and is planned to span approximately 2,300 miles (3,700 km) in 108 days. They are currently expected to arrive in D.C. on February 10, 2026. The monks are accompanied by a dog named Aloka, who has become a symbolic figure throughout the journey. The monks have been documenting their travels on multiple social media platforms. Since creating their Facebook page on November 8, 2025, it has grown exponentially, reaching 1 million followers on January 11, 2026, and 2 million just 11 days later. They have 2.6 million followers on Facebook and 1.8 million followers on Instagram as of February 4, 2026. -- Wikipedia

  

Some links

• The Dhammacetiya Home Page
• Walk for Peach Overview Map
• Walk for Peace (Wikipedia)

2025: Reading Year in Summary

Here are the 50 books I read in 2025 (in reverse chronological order). I started and ended the year with Bond, James Bond. Finally got around to Thomas Pynchon's Vineland, Erasure (by Percival Everett), and Michael Cunningham's The Hours. Arthur Machen was a new discovery for me. 

Read a number of good short story collections inspired by some travel -- Helsinki Noir, San Francisco Noir, The Book of Leeds, The Book of Liverpool, New Zealand Stories (by Katherine Mansfield), Palo Alto (by James Franco), Milk and Other Stories (by Simon Fruelund), and Mogens and Other Stories (by Jens Peter Jacobsen).

A couple of standouts, by authors I've reading for the first time included Birnam Wood (by Eleanor Catton), The Great When (by Alan Moore), The Ministry of Time (by Kaliane Bradley), So Much for That Winter (by Dorthe Nors), and The Cartographers (by Peng Shepherd). And a standout from a previously read author, The Blood of Angels (by Johanna Sinisalo)

A pair of speculative/alternative fictions, It Can't Happen Here (by Sinclair Lewis) and The Plot Against America (by Philip Roth) were, as the year wore on, more like a doom scroll than fiction. 

From the Poetry aisle, were The Tobacco Shop (by Fernando Pessao), The Fall of America: Poems of These States 1965-1971 (by Allen Ginsberg), and the brilliant v. (by Tony Harrison).

In the non-fiction category, I read a number of "short histories" for various travel trips; I also reached back for Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy by the ever thoughtful and inspiring Kathleen Fitzpatrick.

And I'll finish with noting the latest installment of Dr. Gene Kritsky's documentation of the Magicicada, The Pilgrims’ Promise: The 2025 Emergence of the Periodical Cicada Brood XIV.