“In November 2025, I was invited to observe the inaugural Global Peace Prayer Festival in Thimphu, Bhutan. This sacred gathering coincided with national celebrations honouring the 70th birthday of His Majesty the Fourth King. Sitting amongst thousands of practitioners who had communed in the Land of the Thunder Dragon, I watched people of all nationalities, races, and colours unite under the umbrella of Vajrayana Buddhism. Together, we were all seeking peace for the world.

In Bhutan, the foundation of peace may be traced back to each and every Buddhist monastery built to counter the darkness of humanity. For centuries, the practice of prayers and mantras has empowered their dance rituals as a form of secular outreach for peace, order, and decency. The ancient stories speak of a giant demoness, the Sinmo, who lay across the Himalayas to obstruct the spread of Buddhism. She was a wondrous monster, who represented the wild untamed forces that resists order. King Songtsen Gampo built 108 temples in the seventh century to pin her down, like acupuncture needles driven into the earth at her joints and pressure points. The temples are like varja nails of the himalayan cosmos, a kind of geomantic landscape transformed into an imagined mandala.

I feel that Sinmo was never truly subdued. She may have bled into our everyday life, in all kinds of manifestations. She could be the chaos and disorder in our lives—some kind of inner demon, or an enemy within and without ourselves. She is omnipresent, a body of unrest that seeks to hinder the light. She is a reminder that peace will never be everlasting, but rather a mindful effort to pray… to keep the demons subdued.

It is quite unthinkable that a tiny kingdom, nested in the Himalayas with around 800,000 inhabitants, takes on the responsibility of peace prayers for the world. They understand that the Sinmo is global. They unite people of all colors in the name of Buddhism, they preserve the temples that resisted chaos. This mirrored in stark contrast to our global reality. Elsewhere, existing world orders are dissloving from within, a great nation divided against itself. Its people segregate again by the color of their skin and the accent of their speech, inevitably, they had ushered in an era of post-truth madness. In this kind of world, there is no decency, only chaos thrives and humanity suffers. This feels like the demoness stirring, her limbs stretching across continents, obstructing the spread of peace. Yet, Bhutan continues the work of King Songtsen Gampo, offering prayers for Global Peace.

An urgent call to action; a relentless act upon our consciousness.”