The Global Peace Walk, Pathway to Global Peace Zone 2000
By Rev. Yusen Yamato, January 18, 1999, Martin Luther King Birthday Holiday
We are concerned about our future. We are concerned about our human life.
Living on the Globe with All my friends.
On October 10th, 1993, I was invited to join in offering a Memorial Dedication Ceremony for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Yerba Buena Gardens (related article with photo appeared on the front page of the October 11th San Francisco Examiner). This was the first time for a Buddhist monk to offer an official prayer ceremony to Dr. King. I sensed that I got transmitted Dr. King's message and spirit.
Then the Great Spirit guided me to initiate a peace walk named "Global Peace Walk"
for the United Nations 50th Anniversary, starting from the United Nations building in New York City on January 15, 1995 (Dr. King's birthday) to the San Francisco War Memorial Building arriving June 20, 1995, to offer the future generations' prayer of "Global Peace Now!"
Almost 54 years ago the United Nations was founded to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war", to promote "universal human rights", and to fulfill people's dream of "no more war forever". The reality and history since the foundation of the UN is quite different from what we expected 54 years ago from the original UN Charter. People are suffering more than ever, and people still practice wars with newer designs of weapons. Why do people have to suffer this?
If we discuss this question, it is very interesting. I remember my birthplace in Japan. I was raised in a traditional area where people lived off land and life. People there practiced an organic macrobiotic farming system, recycling system, shrine carpentry, and other systems that young people in these days are only studying about. Our people lived on the same land for more than 700 years, practicing these systems. There was a stream. There were many fish, insects and stream animals in the stream. Many beautiful cherryblossoms blessed people every Spring with wonderful flowers. Our people lived in harmony with nature. Nature provided us with food, clothing and shelter. Nature and people were very together as one. Our people did not produce any waste or pollution. I hope that some day people will bring back this knowledge to
our present life.
After World War II, soldiers came to our land with their jackboots pounding. My grandmother told me then, "soon business people will come to our land to separate our land and our life". In front of my young innocent eyes, our land was taken by the new municipal government to build running water systems, highway systems, subway systems, factories, a hospital, and schools. All my relatives started to separate as nature was separated from our lives. My childhood playground, the stream, the mountain, rice fields, vegetable gardens, cherryblossom gardens, all were disappeared one by one along with the lights of the fireflies. One by one, all were disappeared from our reality ground. Later I learned that something very similar to this incident has occurred across this whole globe. Our land was covered up by a "snowfall of DDT" for the so-called "clean-up" under martial law and human testing. Our farming ground became a pesticide test area. Our mountain was cut off to build a hospital and a school for the so-called "new and better way of life" system. Our people became ginea-pigs for new medical products. The new education system separated the children from their parents and grandparents.
Now people would like to go back to nature, but what was once nature has become a concrete jungle. People would like to have good relations between the generations, but the "generation gap", between the traditional and modernized ways of life, is a very long spiritual distance because there is not so much spiritual connection understanding these days. For the universal human resolve for "Global Peace Now!", for The Way of Life, and The Tree of Life, I initiated the Global Peace Walk and still keep going to build an invisible bridge between past and present and future to protect our land and life.
In 1991, I visited the United Nations with the Hopi (people praying for peace) prophecy spokesperson, Thomas Banyaca. The Hopi Nation ancestors left a message that stated that the Hopi would visit the "house of mica" (the prophesied glasslike building found to be the United Nations) four times, to open the door of the UN to the Spiritual Message of Peace. Before 1991 Hopi had tried already three times to open the door of the UN, but the UN did not communicate with Hopi. Prior to this UN visit with Mr.
Banyaca, I pilgrimaged to India. In India I offered prayers in Leh, Ladakh, and
Rajgir. I walked and prayed in Naranda, Buddha-Gaya, Sarnat, Baishari, and
Kushinagar. In Kushinagar, Namgyo Monastery's monks offered me an invitation
to His Holiness Dalai Lama's Namgyo Monastery in Dharamsala. I honorably met H.H.
Dalai Lama to inform him of Hopi Prophecy. He offered me a message, "Future
Generations must develop a greater sense of global responsibility". Also H.H. Dalai Lama invited me and the Hopi Prophecy spokesperson, Thomas Banyaca, to the New York City Central Park Sunrise Ceremony and Kalachakra Ceremony at Madison Square Garden. This ceremonial event was to fulfill part of both the Hopi Prophecy, and also the Tibetan Prophecy of "When iron birds fly in the sky and iron horses run on the land, the Red robe people will spread to the four directions and then the Dharma will come to the land of the Red people". I was honored to witness and participate in this spiritual ceremony. After this ceremony Mr. Banyaca and I, and some representatives from Bahai, went to the UN building. In front of the entrance of the UN, the first UN secretary was waiting for us and officially accepted the Hopi Sovereign Nation passport, for the first time in history. Mr. Banyaca performed sacred ceremony, and he offered the Hopi message, eagle feather and prayer to the UN. The following year 1992, the UN invited representatives from many indigenous nations around the world to come for a conference which turned into the "Beyond Treaty" ceremony during the big storm of New York City, December 12-13, 1992. In 1993, at the World Indigenous Conference in the UN, indigenous people accused the spirit of the UN for only supporting governments. They suggested that the UN support more the survival of human beings, The Way of Life, and The Tree of Life. I was there to witness this whole ceremony as an inspiration for the Global Peace Walk of 1995.
After the Cold War ended, many people went to the Berlin Wall to tear down the
wall and to celebrate the unification of East and West. The Global Peace Walk is
praying to bring back knowledge and Wisdom Mind, to develop a Spiritually
United Nations to realize the spiritual unity of all human beings as "One Mind, many bodies". We must bring back into our daily life the knowledge which we have hidden in museums and libraries, in order to protect our land and life! Past, present and future must blend into oneness consciousness, to recognize that all living beings are all our relations. For this purpose, Global Peace Walkers are praying to build a peace pagoda (stupa) in front of the Nevada Nuclear Test Site to stop nuclear testing. Nuclear is against not only human beings but also all living beings.
Global economy, global network, global environment and global everything; these days people recognize this global consciousness in many fields. Our ancestors left a message 700 years ago: "Someday all human beings will recognize that this globe is our house and our altar. Someday all human beings must pray for 'Global Peace Now!' ". Our ancestors had a sense of global responsibility a long time ago. Tribes which have a long history, knowledge, and culture, must lead our land and life into harmony and balance (Global Responsibility as Human-being). I have been saying, "living on the globe with all my friends". If all human beings develop consciousness up to this level, this whole globe would become a Global Peace Zone. Global problems and chaos will be once and for all diminished when people open up The Mind, to change consciousness and thereby find useful applications of the emptiness mind energy (High-Techno-Zero-Energy).
All of the problems we face were created by human beings, and only we can solve these problems. Nothing else can. There are many organizations around this globe, but people must recognize that this globe itself is the original and only organization that we truly belong to. The globe is One and the truth is One. Future generations' only mission is to bring back this truth once again to rediscover this globe. Every one of us is the center of the universe and this globe. Nature is the place where one can pursue truth and where one finds oneself. If humanity lives in harmony with nature, all land will become eternal land. The Global Peace Walk uses right foot and left foot, and prays for "Global Peace Now!" to live in oneness with all living beings. This is our goal as human beings.
Since 1995 the Global Peace Walk has received letters of support from mayors,
governors, senators, the President and Vice President, the US representative to the UN, a federal prisoner, Native Americans, and many religious organizations. We received an invitation to the opening ceremony for the Peace Museum in Bethlehem, Palestine, for the Bethlehem 2000 observances. In April,1995, we received an official Mayoral proclamation designating Taos, NM, to be a "Global Peace Zone". Also, in January, 1997, we received the Global Peace Zone Proclamation from San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. In the Fall of 1997, we celebrated the "Summer of Love 30th Anniversary" in Golden Gate Park. In the Fall of 1998, we brought an American Indian medicine man as a global peace ambassador to Japan. We performed sacred ceremony at several spiritual sites in Japan. In the near future we would like to communicate with the mayor of San Francisco's sister city of Osaka, Japan, for a Global Peace Zone sister city project.
I feel it is a miracle that I live today. Everything is possible in these times. On April 22, 1999, in Taos, NM, (the spinal cord of this continent) there will be the annual Global Peace Walk. As a human-being, I pray for people's support for the peace walk to succeed.
"Climb up to the mountain,
then listen to the pine needles' voice,
that is our ancestor's voice saying...
'Humanity must live in the peaceful Way of Life'".
Sincerely, for Global Peace Now!
Rev. Yusen Yamato, Global Peace Walk Initiator
[moved in 2001 from San Francisco to Taos, NM]
Mailing address:
HC71 Box 5B
Taos, NM 87571
See: http://www.globalpeacenow.org for current activities