Stone Pagoda

Under an old chestnut tree just outside Newport, Tennessee, a sacred Buddhist ritual repeated its timeless call one more time. The sky above the site was clear, colored a fine Carolina blue, and a soft, cool breeze moved the leaves and flags and spread the scent of incense throughout the throng. Bells rang, gongs spoke, cymbals chimed and all this reverberated and echoed together with the chanted prayers.



Sixty-three years after the first atomic bomb blew apart the Japnese city of Heroshima, some of the survivors’ descendents and some of their American counterparts dedicated this new Shrine to Peace in the American Great Smoky Mountains, virtually within the sight of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

The Stone Pagoda is not intended as a symbol of retaliation or revenge. It is a Buddhist prayer – written in stone – praying for peace for all beings.



Higher yet up the mountain, food awaits the participants and guests. The last time that the commemoration on this mountain included priests who had come from Japan, which was three years ago, we all feasted on American food. Today the food was Japanese. The meal was buffet and the hit of the day was Japanese curry over rice. Egg rolls, rice rolls, seaweed, sesame seed-coated green beens and a couple of other unidentified food objects. Everybody kept going back for more, and then they brought out the desserts!

And last time, when the food was American, the music was Japanese, beautiful and etheral. Today, Bluegrass music drifted out of the temple across the Great Smoky Mountains, and the Buddhist monks from Japan showed us they can smile, clap their hands and tap their toes just like the rest of us did. There were some 200 people (my estimate) who attended and perhaps a contingent of 20 to 30 who came from Japan.


So the temple is a place of beauty and worship and joy, but it is far more than just that. The temple, and now the stone pagoda, and within 4 more years the great Stupa of Peace, still to be built are all destined to be places where people of different religions, nations, races, education, and all other preparations for life can and will come to meet each other and to talk and worship peace each in their own way and in their own religion or even just commune with the Great Mysteries.



© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.