compassion prayer

I can't believe it's only been five days since I arrived to India. It seems like it's been forever. So much has happened I don't think I can remember everything. I feel like my world has separated into two parts. The one I have with the clinic then another one with the Tibetan Buddhist monastery. So I will have to talk about the two separately .. at least for now. I don't think I can survive otherwise right now. I keep thinking if this monastery thing is getting a bit too much to handle then at least I have the clinic to get me through the six months because right now living in this monastery where lama zopa rinpoche, one of the most famous rinpoche and very good friends with the Dalai Lama is residing and where almost everyone's been studying and practicing tibetan buddhisim for at least 20 years is a bit too much. I feel like they're speaking a foreign language and labeling everything as "karma".... and apparantly I have a great karma because I am in the mecca of Tibetan Buddhism and I am at the right location at the right time. I honestly can't even write about this right now because I feel so overwhelmed with thoughts and emotions. However all in all, I am meeting great people and had some really bizarre encounters with Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Lama Dagri.

So I am very impressed with the clinic. It has a bigger homeopathetic medicine supply than western medicine supply. Mostly because homeopathetic medicine is cheaper than western medicine. And I was most impressed with Dr. Sanjay story of how be opened the clinic and he's vision for the clinic. You can definitely tell that this clinic is his pride and joy. However, I wouldn't be surprised if he thought this clinic is more his child than his six yr old daughter. I believe that I'm not getting the full picture because he seems to idealize the clinic a bit too much because of the emotional attachment he has to it. But none the less, he is doing great things. I will start with the clinic. There's four days of general medicine, one day of HIV patients, one day for Children's, and one day for women's health. Then there's the Tara Children's Project, an orphange of about 11 HIV children. We make sure the children are taking all their ART medication, eating nutritious food, school tutor, psychology evaluation everyday, daily weights, etc.. Then there's a mobile clinic. A team of nurses go out to the village to treat and teach villagers. There's a physiotherapy room, a health educator team. An ambulance for house calls and consultation and to take critical cases to the main hospital. tThe patients are mostly farmers, coming in with knee, back, shoulder, and arm pain due to physical labor. There are also uncontrolled diabetes, hypertension, malaria, TB, HIV. The children come in with flu, skin issues ie. scabies,cerebral palsy, UTI, and MALNUTRITION!!! I decided that the first two weeks will be orientation. I will sit and observe each department for at least an hour before I start my projects. My day starts from 9 AM but I've been going in early to socialize and help set up. I was able to memorize everyone's name after the first day. Everyone loved that! We start the day by gathering in front of the clinic to offer a lil prayer of compassion. Then I've been observing at least two departments everyday for at least an hour sometimes doing emergency calls, like going to Lama Zopa Rinpoche's room and taking his temperature and giving him health advice. I finish the day with talking with the Dr. Sanjay about what I observed, spirituality, our goals, and etc.. we often run of time. I have a few projects in mind that I would like to get started right away but I'm really glad that I've decided to take two weeks for orientation. I'm also glad I now have wireless internet connection in my room!