Approximately 20 miles west of Seattle. After crossing the waters twice to reach the Kitsap Peninsula and passing through a deep forest of towering cedars and Douglas firs, a surreal sight unfolds before one’s eyes. It is a chain-link fence stretching endlessly for miles—the perimeter of Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, the world’s largest nuclear missile storage facility and homeport to eight nuclear submarines. Merely 1.6 kilometers from the storage site where a massive arsenal of nuclear warheads sleeps, and barely 100 feet from the boundary fence that stands as the symbol of this overwhelming violence, the pure white “Pacific Northwest Peace Pagoda” has manifested.
On May 23, 2026, an inauguration ceremony was held, bringing together approximately 350 people, including the monastics of the Nipponzan Myōhōji Buddhist order, the indigenous Suquamish people of the land, and peace activists from around the world. It was not merely a celebration of a completed structure, but an intersection of souls reaffirming nearly half a century of nonviolent struggle and the continuity of life across ethnicities.
Here are some images of the inauguration and celebration:
Enshrining the Buddha statue in the Pagoda.
Peace march to Ground Zero.
Pre-ceremony at the Suquamish Longhouse.
Drum performance of the Sacred Water.
Group photo with the kid and his new necklace.
The land on which the Peace Pagoda stands is owned by the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, an anti-nuclear organization that has built a profound solidarity with the Nipponzan Myōhōji monastics since the late 1970s. Located immediately adjacent to the Bangor base, the Center has been a frontline stronghold of the American anti-nuclear movement since the Cold War era.
In the 1980s, the U.S. government utilized heavily armored special trains, known as “White Trains,” to secretly transport nuclear warheads from manufacturing facilities across the country to this Bangor base as their final destination. In response, grassroots activists Jim and Shelley Douglass, the founders of the Center, identified these top-secret transport routes. To monitor and block the tracks leading to the Bangor base, they collaborated with local activists along the routes, forging a massive communication network connecting over 250 towns nationwide.
Whenever a train appeared, they held prayer vigils alongside the tracks and consistently engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience, sometimes physically laying themselves on the tracks to halt the train’s advance. This indomitable protest and the resulting surge of public opinion ultimately forced the government to pivot its policy, leading to the complete abandonment of the nuclear weapons train transport program by the late 1980s.
Many of the activists who threw themselves into the White Train protests of that era attended this inauguration ceremony. During the eve of the ceremony, when Rev. Senji Kanaeda —who practices in Seattle—called upon them to stand, the venue was enveloped in thunderous applause. Their posture of pleading for peace by putting their own bodies on the line against state violence was nothing less than the embodiment of Bodhisattva practice in Buddhism.
The vision for a Peace Pagoda in this location originated in November 1980, when the Most Ven. Nichidatsu Fujii (Guruji), founder of Nipponzan Myōhōji, deeply resonated with those who sacrificed their freedom and safety to maintain nonviolent protest. He proposed the construction of a Peace Pagoda at this Ground Zero site as a testament to walking alongside their prayers.
However, the path was far from smooth. On May 28, 1982, unknown arsonists suddenly set fire to the temple, burning the building to the ground, and around the same time, the Kitsap County Board of Commissioners revoked the construction permit for the Pagoda.
Yet, merely half a month after this incident—which could be called the “Seattle Persecution”— Fujii Guruji immediately returned to the site the following June. During his Dharma talk at the Bainbridge Island temple on June 15, he showed no signs of intimidation. Instead, he penetratingly revealed the true process by which a Peace Pagoda manifests and the ultimate mission of religion:
“To agonize over and seek to save the nation and the world from their sufferings, to share in the sufferings of the local people, through this religious activity, temples are built everywhere, pagodas are erected, and thus the Buddha-Dharma naturally prospers. Recently, we conducted a World Peace March where we simply walked around, but after walking, pagodas and temples have subsequently arisen in countries all over the world.
The Buddha-Dharma does not exist for the sake of building temples. Buddhist activities exist to save sentient beings from their suffering. During the lifetime of the Great Founder, Nichiren Daishōnin, he never made a fuss about building a temple. He simply spent his life directly confronting hardships hither and thither, clashing with various authorities. If we were to make the building of temples our goal, we would eventually end up exploiting the Buddha-Dharma for our personal livelihoods. That is not right. The Buddha would not forgive such a thing. Mere propagation of our teachings in America would never have allowed us to orchestrate this peace march, nor could we ever have concentrated our strength at the UN Special Session on Disarmament. Such a religion is useless. The ones who stood at the forefront and guided those one million people in New York were the World Peace Marchers with their Gendai flags (banners of the Odaimoku) and their drums. The ones who chanted and spread the Odaimoku for those one million people were, after all, the peace walkers. The power concentrated in New York stood at the vanguard of all religious people worldwide. This is precisely the mission for which our Nichiren Daishōnin was born into the Latter Day of the Law (Mappō).”1
As these words illustrate, for Nipponzan Myōhōji, a Peace Pagoda is not merely a building. The ceaseless practice of prayer—chanting the Odaimoku and walking the earth while sharing the pain of those exposed to the nuclear threat, known as the “Peace March”—serves as the soil. The Pagoda naturally “manifests” as the crystallization of this practice.
That is precisely why the burning of the temple and the obstruction of its construction was not a defeat. As long as the true foundation—the activity of walking and praying for peace alongside the people—continues, the vow of the Pagoda will inevitably be resurrected. This unshakeable conviction once again stirred the hearts of the people. Now, 45 years later, as the culmination of their indomitable peace marches, the Peace Pagoda has finally been completed.
The grand inauguration ceremony opened with the drums and prayer songs of the Suquamish people, the indigenous stewards who have protected this land since ancient times.
Having walked a history of hardship and having been dispossessed of their lands since the arrival of white settlers, the Suquamish people continue to hold a profound reverence for life, believing that “all plants and animals are our brothers and sisters.” Fujii Guruji once taught, “The only way the USA can be saved from its evil karma is through the power of its Indigenous peoples,” and instructed his disciples to stand in solidarity with them. On this day, the sight of the monastics and the Indigenous people beating drums and praying together was proof that his teachings have indeed borne fruit.
During the performance, a little boy, not yet two years old, stepped out unsteadily in front of the drums. As he innocently and vigorously moved his body to the rhythm of the drums, his mother tried to pull him back. However, Barbara Lawrence, an elder of the Suquamish tribe, gently signaled her with her hand and smiled, conveying, “Let him keep dancing.”
Later, during her congratulatory remarks, Elder Barbara called the mother forward, handed her a traditional, handmade necklace, and spoke these words:
“Please do not view this necklace merely as a gift, but give it to him when he is older as a ‘Reminder’ of this day. We, the Suquamish people, were also raised from a young age dancing to the sound of the drums and inheriting these prayers. Today, seeing this child dance so innocently in response to our drums, I felt the heartbeat of our prayers firmly connecting to the future, transcending generational and ethnic differences, and I am filled with profound joy.”
Right next to the fence of the nuclear missile base, the activists who fought through the Cold War, the monastics and believers offering prayers, the Indigenous people drumming the earth, and the innocently dancing toddler all became one circle. The Ven. Gyoko Imai, who officiated the ceremony, spoke of the thin clouds above that shielded the attendees from the blazing sun, calling it “an auspicious sign of the peace that future generations will experience.”
Author Yuri Morita, who once participated in a peace march here and saw this Peace Pagoda under construction, described it as “David’s pebble.” It evokes the biblical story of the unarmed shepherd boy David, who, armed with only his faith and a single stone, struck down the giant Goliath who had tormented his people.
Spreading beyond the fence is a concentration of overwhelming destructive power, equivalent to roughly 10,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs. Her perspective—likening this colossal violence to the “Giant Goliath” and superimposing the “single stone” that pierces the giant onto this modest white pagoda built solely through prayer—vividly captures the essence of the nonviolent struggle that continues in this place.
Here, at Ground Zero, a single “pebble of David” has certainly been cast. This small stone, imbued with the reverberating drums and prayers of people transcending generations and ethnicities, will surely, one day, bring down the behemoth of nuclear weapons.
1. In Buddhist eschatology, this refers to the current, degenerate age following the historical Buddha’s passing, characterized by widespread spiritual decline and social turmoil. Within the context of Nichiren Buddhism, it is the specific era in which conventional teachings are believed to lose their salvific efficacy, rendering the direct invocation of the Lotus Sutra (chanting the Odaimoku) as the sole prescribed path to guide humanity toward peace and enlightenment.
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The Writer:
Mitsutake Ikeda completed a bachelor’s degree in International and Area Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 2007, and a Master of Arts in Translation Studies at the University of Coimbra in 2017. He is a collaborator member of Unidade de Investigação & Desenvolvimento “Instituto de Estudos Filosóficos” (IEF) and a PhD student in Philosophy at the University of Coimbra.
Photo Credits: the followers of Nipponzan Myōhōji.
