Brief Project Description

Brahmavihara/Cambodia AIDS Project is a small Buddhist chaplaincy organization providing services to Cambodian AIDS patients too poor to access traditional resources. We began work in 2000, at a time when antiretroviral (ARVs) and other life-prolonging medicines were not available. Our work then was directed towards helping people find as much peace as possible while facing certain death. Since the introduction of free ARVs to Cambodia beginning in 2001 and with their current broad availability, our work has expanded to include extensive referrals, coordination and some material support.

But the essential point of our work is chaplaincy: helping people realize that the Buddha's compassion is already fully present, even and especially in the midst of their suffering. All our work, including our own ongoing training, is directed towards embodying, to the best of our abilities, an attentive and compassionate Buddhist presence, one which will help people awaken their own capacities for meaningful and compassionate life and death. ( For a fuller project description please see the Background section of this website.)

Project News

Brahmavihara/Cambodia AIDS Project and Fireflies Renovate Chea Chum Neas Hospital Mortuary

Thanks to Fireflies, a Singaporean Buddhist charitable organization, and with the help of one other donor Brahmavihara/Cambodia AIDS Project was finally able to renovate the mortuary at Chea Chum Neas hospital. As many of you know, the building has been long neglected and used inappropriately. We hope it will now be a peaceful and compassionate space for the newly dead and their families.

Project Director Keo Sopheap oversaw the restoration, finding contractors and supervising the work. Brahmavihara/Cambodia AIDS Project held an informal ceremony for the space the day we finished. On March 22, with two visiting members of Fireflies, we held a more major ceremony. Fireflies also contributed a basket of essentials and some money for each patient in the hospital, taking care of the living as well as the dead. (For a full photoessay please see the Mortuaries section of this website.

Founder Beth Kanji Goldring was one of 20 women named Outstanding Women in Buddhism 2008. The ceremonies were held in Bangkok March 6 (please also see www.owbaw.com).

“I was enormously pleased and honored to be included in this group of women, most of whom have accomplished so much more than I have,” said Beth. The group included abbesses and heads of Bhikkhuni sanghas from Taiwan, Korea and the US; extraordinary laywomen from Germany, the US, Japan and Thailand; radical nuns from Thailand, Taiwan and the UK; and practitioners of engaged Buddhist social action from the UK, Thailand, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and the US. Presiding over the ceremonies were, among others, the heads of the Bhikkhuni Sangha from Taiwan and the Thai Chinese head of the Bangkok Kwan Yin Temple. Bhikkhunis from Thailand were the organizers of the awards and ceremonies.

“Of course the award belongs to my staff and organization,” said Beth. “It is their work with its increasing depth and beauty that has brought attention to what we are doing.”

Beth’s brother-in-law, along with two friends from Cambodia, two friends from the US, and two visitors from Germany accompanied her to the ceremonies in Bangkok.

Two of four papers Beth prepared for the ceremonies are newly included in the Papers section of this website. They are her Keynote speech on Gratitude and her talk on Dhamma and Social Action.

Project Staff Receive Master’s Level Reiki Attunements

Heng Soeun, Saum Bun Heng, Keo Sopheap, Yiv Ramo, Le Sok Ny, and Lok Yay Coy Srein received their Masters level Reiki attunements April 30, 2008. All of them have been practicing Reiki, along with Healing Touch, since the beginning of 2006.

The Master’s level attunement empowers each of them not only to practice Reiki but also to teach and transmit the practice. They will be the first Khmer Reiki teachers in Cambodia.

(Staff portrait photos by Bennett Stevens; other news section photos from various sources.)