Video: What it Takes to Manifest Compassion: A Talk with the Sabal Foundation

October 24, 2024

A presentation and brief film screening with Eileen Moncoeur, Executive Director of HRDC Sabal Foundation in Nepal, which harnesses global support so that the poorest children with disabilities in Nepal can access surgery, rehabilitation, and loving care.

Eileen guided attendees through an exploration of the ways in which global principles of compassion can be put into action on the ground in community settings, using the Sabal Foundation’s work as a case study. HDS Buddhist Ministry Initiative instructors Chris Berlin and Dr. Santoshkumar Raut offered a response and commentary.

This event took place on October 24, 2024.

SPEAKER 1: Harvard Divinity School.

SPEAKER 2: What it Takes to Manifest Compassion, a Talk with the Sabal Foundation, October 24, 2024.

CHRIS BERLIN: All right. Welcome. Thank you for joining us tonight. I wanted to begin this event by chanting the Medicine Buddha Mantra, which in Tibetan Buddhism, the Medicine Buddha is-- his name is pronounced Bekandze. Bhaisajyaguru is the Sanskrit version, but Bekandze is that aspect of healing that we all carry within us and chanting the Medicine Buddha opens that reveals that quality to us to offer up for healing, for well-being, for peace.

So as we start, just opening the heart and holding that space of peace and that aspiration for well-being for our world, for our planet, and then we'll dive in. Sound good? OK.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

Thank you. So my name is Chris Berlin. I am on faculty here at Harvard Divinity School and also the denominational counselor to our Buddhist students. I also am a grad. I graduated from here in 2006. So I've walked these halls for quite a while for over 20 years.

And during that time, we have a lot of programs that come through. We're all so busy. And it's easy to lose what's happening here at HDS. When I learned about HRDC and the Sabal Foundation and then I watched the film that we're going to be screening this evening, I was so deeply moved and touched.

There's something magical about this film, and it really conveys the spirit and the energy of love and compassion that's possible to build something really special in this world out of a very grassroots aspiration and so it's really a privilege now after the planning for a benefit concert we were offering on Saturday at the friends meeting house in Cambridge.

And my thinking early on in the planning was we need to screen this at HDS, and we need to let people know about the work that they're doing. And also, if I may extend an invitation to students who might be interested in looking into this, the Sabal Foundation, or perhaps some of the monastic areas around the hospital for a possible international field head placement.

So if you're interested in that, please come and see me. Let me know. We'll be talking about that more going forward, about that possibility. But for tonight, it's really about this miraculous work by doctors Ashok Banskota and his son Bibek, two Nepali physicians who run this hospital.

And so I'd like to introduce, first, one of our guests who is come all the way from Oakland, California, who is the executive director of Sabal Foundation, Eileen Moncoeur Did I say it right?

EILEEN MONCOEUR: Yes.

CHRIS BERLIN: OK. And Eileen is an accomplished non-profit, executive, and philanthropic advisor. For 27 years, she has led change from the ground up, supporting local leaders to create transformative changes in their communities and countries. She has an exceptional ability to identify gaps and opportunities for organizations and disenfranchised people to build structures and pathways to effect positive change and connect people and organizations to national and global networks.

Eileen is passionate about supporting people and organizations to grapple with the world's most intractable problems, so they can create powerful and effective change in the world. Eileen's strategic approach has produced innovative solutions, building a path to education for undocumented migrants in Thailand, supporting ethnic minority leaders who engage with governments and bring their voices to the United Nations-- that's new to me. That's cool-- and treatment, hope, and dignity to the poorest children with disabilities in Nepal.

She is currently executive director of HRDC Sabal Foundation and on the board of the Center for Environmental Health. Let's please welcome Eileen Moncoeur.

[APPLAUSE]

I will also introduce Santosh, unless you would like to.

EILEEN MONCOEUR: No, no.

CHRIS BERLIN: OK. We also have our-- what would that be-- responder to the film. And we're grateful that Santoshkumar Raut, who is our postdoc at HDS in Buddhist Ministry, he is with us here to offer a response to the film and a commentary.

So he is our postdoc fellow, postdoctoral fellow-- don't mean to shorten it out of disrespect-- in Buddhist Ministry at Harvard Divinity School, and assistant professor of aesthetics and philosophy at the English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad, India.

For the past 11 years, Dr. Raut has also served as director of the Nagarjuna Training Institute in Nagaloka, Nagpur. He holds a PhD from India's premier academic institution, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. In 2023 -24, he was also a Buddhist Ministry Initiative International Fellow here at HDS.

As a post-doctoral fellow, he is offering a course in the spring 2025 on Navayana Buddhism, the Buddhist movement started by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in India and social change focusing on movements for social justice and liberation in modern India in the context of spiritual leadership. I wish I could take that class with you.

He is also conducting research that will serve as a basis for a seminary curriculum including Master of Buddhist Leadership and Master of Buddhist Studies degrees that he plans to implement at the Nagarjuna Training Institute. So let's welcome Dr. Santosh Raut.

[APPLAUSE]

EILEEN MONCOEUR: So I'm just absolutely thrilled to be here with all of you, and I want to thank the whole Harvard Divinity School team for this really warm welcome and opportunity. And we've been talking about what a wonderful intersection it is to think about our work with local leaders and grassroots organizations in South and Southeast Asia and the Harvard Divinity School. And it's just a really wonderful opportunity to explore this with a new lens.

So I'm Eileen Moncoeur. And I also want to acknowledge our chairman here who's with us tonight, Mike Kline. Thank you for being here. So I've had the wonderful privilege of, over the last 27 years, working with local leaders mostly in South and Southeast Asia. Worked in Nepal inside Tibet with Tibetan nomads in India, with Tibetans living in refugee camps, and worked with partners in Thailand and in Myanmar particularly during the period of time we thought there was going to be an opening and a democracy.

And so I really got to know people working at the grassroots levels. And I think one of the things that I've learned over the years is I never go in with any answers. What I do is I get to know people, get to know what their circumstances are, and really try to learn how to listen very carefully and then, together, figure out, do I have anything to offer? Do I have a network? Collectively, what can we offer to these really courageous leaders?

And some of them are working in refugee camps. There was one partner working with refugees who are undocumented migrants that were fleeing violence in Burma, coming across the border into Thailand. They would bring their families. They would be living in orange orchards. And they were terrified that the local government was going to find them and deport them back into Burma, where they would only face violence.

And there was a group that was working with them that knew Thai law and they knew that they could get work permits and that if they got a work permit they could be in the country legally and then their children could get an education, they could get health care. So it's really finding these local leaders who understand what the local context is and figuring out together, is there a solution?

And this was a group of young 20-year-olds who were-- they mobilized, they managed. Somebody donated a house and they built a community center, people who are afraid to go to the government office. And eventually, by the time I got there, the local government office had given them a desk, [LAUGHS] because they really wanted people to be able to access health care and education for their children.

So I've had this myriad of experiences that really are quite humbling. And I feel like I learned so much from each and every partner that I work with. And the partner that I'm going to talk about tonight is Dr. Ashok Banskota. I met him 27 years ago when I first started doing this work. And I have very few heroes in my life, but he's one of them.

And we're going to see a film. I don't want to ruin the film, but I just want to give you a little bit of context is that he was born and raised in Nepal in a fairly poor family. He was lucky enough to get an education that was a top priority for his parents. And he got a scholarship to go study medicine. He did well. He got a scholarship to study medicine in India. And then he got another scholarship to go to the US and he got his board. He became board-certified.

And it was at that moment-- he was still young. He'd just gotten married, an arranged marriage, and had one young son. And he got his board certification. And at that moment, his father had been writing letters, you know, please come back to Nepal. It was important for the family.

And so he decided to go back to Nepal. And he had a young family. And it was such a pivotal moment, because he could have stayed in the United States, had a very comfortable, probably prosperous life and he just chose a more difficult path. So he went back. They lived in a one-room hut with a dirt floor. He rode an old bicycle to try to go and find work. And he's told me many times over the years that in those first few years he thought he had made a terrible mistake.

And he was volunteering at a leprosy hospital. He was doing all this to try to start up some kind of a practice. But he saw these children that he knew he had the skills to fix. And they were poor. 80% of the country lives on $2 or less in the country. So if there's a poor child with a disability, very likely they will not get treatment if they're poor.

And a double whammy is that disability is considered karma for sins from a previous life. And so children who have a disability in that context, they are isolated. Even in some villages, they think that disability is contagious. And so these children become isolated, their families become isolated, and they live lives of suffering for their entire lives.

And so, in this context, Dr. Banskota's wife was selling jewelry from her dowry so the family could eat. And he just said he couldn't rest at night thinking about these kids. So he started with one child, and he treated that child on his free time.

And I think when we talk about how to manifest compassion, that's the one thing I want to throw out to this audience is my understanding is that compassion is not a noun. It's not something that we have. That compassion is really an activity. It's making a decision that you're going to do something in that moment. And for Dr. Banskota, it was he was going to treat that one child.

And I think that we can lose sight of the fact that we are all decision-makers, that we can all make small decisions any moment of any day. And I think the beauty of that activity, making that decision, reaching out and doing something, it is that it transforms not only the person that you're helping, but it transforms yourself as well. And I think you've all had that experience of feeling somehow better.

So I think compassion doesn't have to be a grand gesture. It doesn't have to be a big institution. So as we watch the film and we have the conversation, I just want to throw out that idea of compassion as a verb.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

Hi, Jack Kornfield here. You are about to witness the magic of the heart and the human spirit. And if you've been worried about the troubles of the world, take heart. Just as the Dalai Lama wakes up in the early morning and chants the prayer from Shantideva, may I be a boat and a raft to help others cross the stream and the flood. May I be food for the hungry. May I be medicine for the sick. May I be a resting place for the weary and may I be a lamp in the darkness for all who are lost. Let these words and this film touch you as a blessing and remind you of your compassion, embolden your spirit so that you too can shower the world with your goodness as a blessing. Thank you.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[CHILDREN GIGGLING]

When a child comes here crawling or is unable to walk, and we treat him and rehabilitate him, to see him walk for the first time in his life is just an absolutely amazing feeling. I realized that I could really make a difference to people who are far, far worse off than I was. When you are helping people, when you serve, when you give, the satisfaction that you get it's incomparable.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

HRDC was established by Dr. Ashok Banskota with a vision of making state-of-the-art, world-class care available for physically underprivileged children of Nepal.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Well, after I returned from my training in America a long time back, healthcare system in Nepal at that time was very, very meager. The enormous challenges that existed and the total lack of organized care, especially for children, was very alarming and how just a little bit of kind, compassionate care and a little bit of skill applied to a problem could achieve such a profound change in patients.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I used to just imagine my own children's faces when I saw these patients and that further made me realize that there was so much to do out here and be a change maker.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

My father used to work seven days a week, so on weekends he used to take us to the hospital. And I think that had a very deep impression on us. Because now, when I reflect on my experiences as a child, I can fully understand that that must have triggered this love for this place that I feel. I always say, for me, when I start climbing this hill, it's not like going to work. It's like coming home.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

My father is really my inspiration. And we grew up seeing him start and grow this work in spite of a lot of odds and hardships. Mahatma Gandhi said, the smallest good deed is better than the biggest good intention. And I think my father is an epitome of that. If he had waited for things to be ideal, it would have never been so he just saw a child and decided to start with one child and treat that child and it just went on and on and on. And 38 years later, we have this beautiful, sprawling institution that goes to the length and breadth of Nepal, scouting these children and bringing them here for treatment.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Our mobile clinic networks are perhaps the most important part of our model of delivery, because they allow us to get to these children who are hidden in remote villages and who don't necessarily have the capacity to turn up at this hospital.

The solution to this is to go to them yourself, and that is how the mobile clinic network was conceived. HRDC is a mobile clinic network, sees almost 55% to 60% of our total consultations and so these are an integral part of this hospital if we are to reach the most impoverished areas of the country and to reach the children who are in most need of our services.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

We look for disabled children in various communities. We go to schools and communities to sensitize the children and adults about disability. We also do home visits during which we find disabled children.

There are four main barriers to why a child cannot participate in society. They are poverty, lack of education, any form of disability and, unfortunately, in our type of environment, female gender. And many of the children that come to HRDC have all four of them, the female children, or three of them. By intervening in disability, you can empower them to address the other barriers.

For example, a child who could not walk before, if you make them walk, they can go to school. If they go to school, they will address the other barrier. They will get an education. If they get an education, they'll earn a livelihood. And if they earn a livelihood, they will be-- instead of as opposed to their family supporting them, they will be supporting their family and they will start contributing to society. And eventually, their example will also help change social stigma and gender biases. So all of these interplay with each other.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

We specialize in treating disability. But, like I said, when you treat a child's disability, it is not straightening the bones, it's straightening the being, the human being. And then you see the parents. You are converting a hopeless situation into a very hopeful situation. You are giving them dignity.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

Earlier, I couldn't walk straight due to my condition. I had to walk on all four limbs. I would be alone at home. I couldn't attend school nor go around with my friends. After my treatment, I could now walk around and look at people straight. I am now able to hang around with my friends and also attend school like others. I am very happy now.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Reflecting back for over four or five decades of professional life, I think I have made the best decision. And I am an extremely satisfied individual. And I thank everybody who has pitched in and helped us out to come this far.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I think the future of HRDC is very, very bright. My father started this hospital 38 years ago. He was one doctor and he had 35 staff. Now, we are more than 30 of us doctors specialized in various streams of children's orthopedics. The program has expanded to various parts of the country. Every year, about 150 days of work is done in the field through our mobile clinics.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Well, my dream is kind of realized, you know? There is a young, very professional, competent generation of doctors who are running the show. From one person, it has become a big team and they are very capable. And my dream is that this work just go on and help more and more children.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

My dream is that this kind of service be available to every child who needs it. This is the dream with which my father started this institution in 1985. And we've come a long way since then, but we know that there are still many, many children who are in need of our services. And I hope a day will come when each one of them can avail of these services and we can better their lives. So more kids, more kids, more service. I mean, that's my dream.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[END PLAYBACK]

CHRIS BERLIN: So I'd like to invite Dr Santoshkumar Raut up. And he has a few words to share with us about the film so please come on up. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

SANTOSHKUMAR RAUT: Well, first of all, friends, thank you very much for coming. And I was speechless. I watched this movie for a few times and I don't know what to respond to besides doing something for them. And when we use the word disable, it's not only disability of your body. As I was quite struck by what Bibek said in his statements, I'm not straightening the bone, I'm straightening the being. I was quite touched by that.

And also, a few statements really. I would like to repeat again here. He was saying, his father, Ashok Banskota, that to see a kid walking for the first time, that gives me a deepest satisfaction. And when you serve or when you give someone to others, that's incomparable joy.

And he also said, when I see them, I feel as if my own kids are suffering from the disabilities. And that level of empathy, that level of recognizing oneself with others' suffering is heart-touching. I was quite touched by the movie. And I was thinking, of course, we have to speak, we have to spread the words, and we have to let rest of the world know what is happening in the rest of the countries out of our comfort zones, so how can I be a changemaker for them, as Ashok Banskota did for them?

And often, in India especially, disability also comes with your disadvantages social background. And I don't think that would be an exception to Nepal, I guess, because the social hierarchies and the inequalities that has been dominating, not only in Asia but everywhere in the world, is incomprehensible and overwhelming at times.

And while I was preparing my note, I had gone through some papers. I was trying to read about disabilities and all. Most of the abstract I read and the paper I had gone through, all research scholars are saying inequality is the biggest issue in health care, in dealing with the health care.

And India, of course, is an obvious example for that. We have experienced that in India during corona time as well how health situation was extremely challenged. And in a way, it was exposed not only for corona or infections that millions of people had in India but also the social prejudices and the undercurrents that were highlighted in that period. So high caste people would prefer to starve in the course of treatment, but they wouldn't eat the food prepared by dalits in the kitchen. And there were cases and examples reported on that basis.

And research shows that during 1998 to 2021, till 2021, the rate of disability in India has been increased. And 4% to 8% childrens are disabled in India. In terms of population, that would be over 90 million children in India. And only 30% of disabled kids could able to go to school. And one in every eight children either they are suffering from various forms of disabilities. That's quite alarming figure.

And a UN report shows that three quarter of children at the age of five and one quarter of our children are suffering from some social stigmas as well as disability and not able to go to school. And girls are especially affected by both the disability and the social stigmas.

So from age group zero to four, there are 1.24 million children disabled in India. And five to nine age group, there are 1.86 million kids who are disabled. And if we see the visual disability, 19% kids are visually disabled in India, hearing, 18.9%, speech, 7.5%, and movement, the physical disability is over 20%.

And then I was looking at their social stratification, mostly, they come from the tribal background or what India called the [? Shudra ?] caste or the labor background and 70% of population of disabled people or children comes from the marginalized section of the society.

So it's not just feeling sympathy or looking as a human situation or human existence. It's a lot going on there. It's a lot going on. There social stigma, there disability, there psychological stigmas, healthcare. Drop-out rate is so high in terms of education. And whatever I'm speaking mainly from Indian experience. I've been to Nepal and I interacted with a lot of social activists and also the non-governmental charity organization, so my experiences are not very far from what I have interacted with them.

So mostly, I think that's the situation. So I was thinking on the notion of compassion. I think we do not need compassion. We need great compassion. Mahakaruna. As Shantideva said is world is full of evil and the negative forces. And Buddha himself said that world is on fire. I think world is also crying. It's not just on fire, it's crying all the time. So what else will save or protect the world? Nothing but the Bodhicitta.

And the manifestation of Bodhicitta is not an idea. It's not a theoretical concept. We have to collectively work for it. We have to take initiative for it. And I think what Dr. Ambedkar said, education. unless that does not change the existence of your being for the better person and to make a better world, that education will only be an idea. And he was very right and he himself educated and made a great difference in India for marginalized section.

He also said in one of his letter to the student I remember in 1942 that your mental disability, let it not affect the inner potential that you have. And I will tell you with my full confidence and let everyone hear this that you got everything what an able person or the privileged people got. It's only a matter of creating those conducive situations and the environment where each individual can flower at the fullest potential.

That's what HRDC was trying to do in Nepal, that they are trying to create not only straightening the bones, but the being as I would quote, again, Bibek. Very rightly said to stand right up, to stand upright with full confidence and getting rid of those inferiorities and the stigmatic existence that they lived in.

And you can see on their faces. It's very touching. The girl was walking, I shouldn't say this, but not less than an animal, you see. And when they really interact in the classroom with uptight body, I don't think we can experience that.

So I was in the class this morning, and I learned something from that class about compassion. What would be the compassion is not just mere feeling, but what we are ready to sacrifice to make that compassion in action.

And I think that becomes a mediation or the tool to reach out to the others. We are so much caught up in our own comfort zone or the tightly firm in the notion of self, and that is so overpowering our mind all the time. We hardly have time to look around the world and what's happening in the rest of the world.

So I think compassion, in that way, cuts across your religious, cultural, national, caste, racial, and gender identities. That's what I think I would like to submit this evening is a radical step that HRDC has taken. And in India, I'm very happy.

My friend Anantha is here. He just arrived from New York. Jarrod Lovett, he is a CEO for Karuna Trust, which works in Bangladesh, Nepal, and in India. So while working with those, my close friends, I have experienced whatever I meditate in my cushion, that meditation is not for cushion.

And compassion is not just a feeling or the fleeting sentimental response, but it's a radical step. It's a radical step where I cut across the identities of caste, gender, religion. And by the way, I think compassion is not a Buddhist or any framed concept. It's a very human parameter or the human feeling that approves that you are a real human and you are alive. That sanctifies your existence itself. That's how I will put compassion.

And I'm very also touched by what Dr. Ashok said. I did not make a wrong choice. My decision was right. Whenever we come across with the first world countries or Western world, the comforts are seducing us.

And I think Dr. Ambedkar also said in one of his memoir that he sent some students to study in London and America, and he said that educated people betrayed me. I thought they would go to the Western world and come back and serve their communities. But he didn't see that has happened. And in fact, he was crying in 1954.

So I think what Ashok manifest is a true application and the true manifestation of his education through compassion in action. So I'm very happy that this event has been organized. Thank you Professor Chris for inviting me and giving me a chance to share some of the words.

And thank you very much, Sabal Foundation for organizing this. I think I'm sure being here at Harvard Divinity School rightly puts into a context what ministerial work or the care and compassion means across all faiths and caste and races.

So let us join together to create a better world and a healthier world for everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for patiently listening.

[APPLAUSE]

SPEAKER 2: Sponsor, Buddhist Ministry Initiative at Harvard Divinity School.