'Peace Mom' Cindy Sheehan Joins World Renowned Vietnamese Peacemaker Thich Nhat Hanh for a Silent Peace Walk to Promote Healing in America
Saturday, October 8th in McArthur Park at 10AM

WHAT: Silent Peace Walk in the Park led by Thich Nhat Hanh and Cindy Sheehan

WHEN: Gather at 10 am The walk begins at 11 a.m. on Saturday, October 8, 2005

WHERE: MacArthur Park, Park View and 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90057

WHO: Thich Nhat Hanh, Cindy Sheehan, more than 50 monks and nuns of Deer Park Monastery and Plum Village in France joined by hundreds of their supporters.

LOS ANGELES -- Cindy Sheehan, the grieving military mother whose August vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas focused the nation's attention on the human cost of the Iraq war, will join world renowned peacemaker Thich Nhat Hanh to lead a silent peace walk Oct. 8th in Los Angeles at 10am in MacArthur Park.

Thich Nhat Hanh is revered as one of the greatest peacemakers of our times. He was nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Nobel Peace Prize and has been a Buddhist monk, peace activist and advocate of love and forgiveness since the age of 16. He has survived persecution, three wars, and 40 years of exile from his native Vietnam. Earlier this year the Vietnamese government allowed Thich Nhat Hanh to return to Vietnam.

Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey, of Vacaville, CA, was killed in Sadr City while serving in the Army in 2004, reinvigorated the peace movement with her month-long vigil in Crawford. Since then, she has been traveling the country, speaking to community groups and meeting with US representatives and senators to urge them to bring the troops home from Iraq.

Sheehan attended the September 24 anti-war march in Washington, DC, at 300,000 plus was the largest anti-war protest since before the war in Iraq started. On September 26, she was arrested with more than 350 other people, including clergy members and other military families, in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in front of the White House. Sheehan is also a co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace (http://www.gsfp.org/).

"You are invited to come and walk peacefully," says Thich Nhat Hanh. "We shall walk in such a way that each step we make becomes a realization of peace; each step becomes a prayer for peace and harmony. Children will join us and we shall walk together in silence, with no banners and no pickets. The walk will not be a petition addressed to anyone, nor will it be a demonstration against anyone. The walk is to unite our heart, to nurture our togetherness and to dissipate fear and separation."

"If you are a Buddhist, please come," says Hanh. "If you are a Christian, please come. If you are Jewish, Muslim, or belong to or identify with any other religious creed or peace organization, please come. If you are white, brown, black, yellow, red or any other color, please come."

Thich Nhat Hanh, who is the author of more than 100 books, says, " Let us also begin anew in the world community by listening deeply and taking care of each other as one family and ending war."

Website: http://www.peaceiseverystep.net/

Gold Star Families for Peace http://www.gsfp.org/

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