NATCHEZ — Buddhist monks from Fort Worth, Texas, are walking on a 2,300-mile, 110-day pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., to promote peace, unity and kindness.

They left Oct. 26 from their Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center.

And on Friday — Day 41 of their sojourn — the monks and their dog, Aloka, crossed the Mississippi River on the Natchez-Vidalia Bridge from Louisiana into Mississippi, where they were greeted by a small group of locals.

“We walk not in protest, but to remind Americans that peace is not a destination. It is a practice. And that peace resides within each of us,” Bhikkhu Pannakara, spiritual leader of the Walk for Peace, said in Natchez.

“The walk is a reminder that unity and kindness begins within each of us and can radiate outward to communities, families and society as a whole,” he said.