We knew we had to help

A group of travelers had gathered in Kathmandu during the summer of 2019 to preserve ancient Sanskrit Buddhist texts from decay. Texts that hold some of the most detailed techniques in training attention, cultivating compassion and training in wisdom.

We were coming from the United States, Romania, and Nepal. We were photographers, PHD’s, administrators, yogis and entrepreneurs.

In the midst of these travels in Kathmandu we met an abbess. She was the head of multiple nunneries and was in service to even more. She had recently emerged from an intensive meditation retreat. Her presence, cadence, attention, and heart cracked us open. Some of us wept just seeing her and listening to her story.

We heard about how some of the nuns didn’t have healthcare, how some of the nuns had lost vision and needed eye transplants. How she couldn’t pay for some of the nuns modern education. How some of the housing structures where her nuns lived needed help.

We decided in that moment out of a surge in our hearts to be of service and that we would brainstorm as a team and would find a way to serve these high impact monastics. Out of this movement in the heart The Maitri Project began. Since this moment The Maitri Project has touched 6,000 monks, nuns, and school children throughout Asia.