Peace Run members from Heidelberg, Germany just sent these lovely photos to us. They created these beautiful origami peace cranes commemorating 75 years since the drop of atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9 respectively).
"The power of destruction is not the answer. Nobody has ever appreciated the power of destruction and nobody will ever appreciate it. It is the power of love, the power of oneness, that is of paramount importance. Peace comes from oneness." -Sri Chinmoy, Founder
Opposite the Buddha statue in the museum is the Peace Tree that was planted in 2001 at a local Peace Run event there with the current Mayor of Heidelberg.
The 21st Century's progress
Shall solely depend on
Heart-power-expansion.
Sri Chinmoy
21世紀の進歩は
ハート力を広げること
これにかかっている
〜シュリ・チンモイ
Over the years, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki cities have been extremely kind and have warmly and enthusiastically welcomed the Peace Run team a number of times. Their yearning and determination to establish and sustain peace is definitely much firmer and stronger than any other cities we have visited in Japan, very understandably.
Here is the video of the opening ceremony at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in 2010, as the launch of Asia Peace Run, which connected cities and countries from Hiroshima to Moscow that year for the first time.
And here is the video from the Nagasaki closing ceremony (of the Japan leg) a week later. The team ran from Hiroshima to Nagasaki, and the relay continued onto Korea, to be finished in Moscow in 4 months time. Yasuko, a renowned taiko drummer offered her prayer for peace with her solo performance.
The Founder of the Peace Run Sri Chinmoy had a very special feeling about Hiroshima and visited there four times during his lifetime, offering a Peace Concert three times. Pictured here is Sri Chinmoy with then the mayor of Hiroshima, Tadatoshi Akiba, during the founder's last visit to Hiroshima on July 13, 2006.