Active Compassion: Roshi Joan Halifax And Her HIgh-Altitude Village Clinics in Nepal
Dakini
Veteran
In the 1980's, Zen Roshi Joan Halifax founded a travelling "Nomads Clinic" that brings mobile medical care to villages in Mustang, a small region of Nepal on the Chinese border that used to be part of Tibet. She credits one of her main Zen teachers in her youth, Thich Nhat Hanh, for inspiring her to see "the relationship between social action and the contemplative life".
Now in her 70's, Halifax travels to Mustang annually, leading a group of doctors and spiritual pilgrims to remote villages over mountain passes 17,000 feet high, to provide the only medical care local residents have any access to. Supply issues and logistical coordination are provided by a local Sherpa couple that has worked with the clinic project in recent years. Medical services take place in schools, temples, or other monastery buildings, wherever local residents can provide space. This year, the clinic served communities destroyed by a recent earthquake. Halifax raised a quarter of a million dollars for that disaster relief effort alone.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/21/medical-mountaineers
