KEEN Australia donated 150 pair of shoes and assisted in shipment to Delhi, in support of Megan Haldane and the worldwide Buddhist organisation.

A brief overview from Megan in her request for support

In May this year I will be joining some very special women I know, who are nuns who live on Amitabha Mountain in Nepa and some monks, their Spiritual Master, His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa, other High Lamas and a lot of Westerners on a walking pilgrimage from Manali in Northern India, up through two mountain passes to Ladakh. I believe we will walk the 700 or so kms for six to eight weeks from 18th May to some time in the beginning of July where we will be joined by thousands of people from the vast Himalayan region for the Annual Hemis Festival conducted and overseen by His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa as it is each year. This walking pilgrimage has never been attempted before and is fast becoming an event that is gaining a lot of media attention. Along the way we will be visiting many holy places and doing prayers, reciting mantras for world peace and harmony for all beings on this planet and for the earth itself.

These nuns are awesome and they will make this journey without complaint and with much joy in their hearts. But all I will be doing is looking at their poor feet feeling a bit guilty about your shoes being on my feet. I have been walking with them before and after suffering horrific blisters which become infected, some of them have resorted to tying cardboard to their feet and they limp along smiling and laughing. Others have old ancient sneakers with the soles detaching and flapping under each step and they walk very funny. I can always tell the ones whose families must have a little money because they have smart, sturdy looking footwear not unlike yours. The nunnery and the monasteries give what they can but of course keeping an ordinary family in shoes is pretty expensive so ’shoeing’ large numbers of monks and nuns has become quite a task and they, of course, would never ever ask for anything.

I might add that the reason this is such a startling and magnificent event, apart from its main purpose of promoting and working hard for World Peace, is that joining the 300 nuns there will be 200 monks. This could be a spectacle beyond belief seeing a single file of monks and nuns with their maroon robes swishing along atop some great KEEN footwear!

Check out their website for more details about the walk walking.drukpa.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 at 4:18 pm and is filed under Care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.