Beyond Vietnam, a walking meditation is a meditation that begins with a talk and moves into a collective walk led by Patricia Nguyen.

The first part of the meditation will focus on a short talk about the friendship and anti-war peace efforts of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. Participants will share reflections on war and peace. We will end with a walking meditation from the Chicago Cultural Center to the Intercontinenal Hotel (formerly the Sheraton-Chicago Hotel), where the two leading figures first met in Chicago on May 31, 1966. The first part of the title draws on Dr. King Jr.'s speech "Beyond Vietnam," which called for an end to the American War in Vietnam and linked the civil rights movement's struggle against racism to militarism abroad. The second part, "a walking meditation" is inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh's Buddhist meditation practice, which was developed in the midst of war and centers on the importance of grounding one's practice of mindfulness to cultivate social transformation.

The walk ends in a reading of exchanges between Martin Luther King Jr. and Thich Nhat Hanh performed by Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, Yohance Lacour, and Dr. Patricia Nguyen, co-designer of the Chicago Torture Justice Memorial.