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A Very Long Walk

In 1977 two American monks set out on foot from Los Angeles on an 800-mile pilgrimage to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, a religious and educational center in Mendocino County, California. The pilgrims, Heng Sure and Heng Ch’au, reached their destination two-and-a-half years later. Along the way, the two wrote letters to the center’s founder and their teacher, the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua. Below is a letter from Heng Sure in the early days of the journey.

Heng Sure & Heng Ch’au

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“Three steps, one bow—three steps along the side of the highway, then a bow to the ground, so that knees, elbows, hands, and forehead touch the earth, then rise, join the palms together, and take three more steps, then begin another bow. Hour after hour, day after day, for two and a half years, this was how they made their pilgrimage . . .”
—from the opening of News From True Cultivators: Letters to the Venerable Abbot Hua

May 29, 1977

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