Dr. Keyzom Bhutti Phunkyil was born in Tingye, Tibet in the well-known family of Tana Phunkyil. Her father Tashi Topgyal Tana Phunkyil was the head of the Tingye region. He was held in great respect and loved by the people. Dr. Bhutti’s mother Norzing Wangmo was from the renowned family of Shogmey Dhagpa from the Sakya region. Both of her parents were very religious minded and they understood the true meaning of karma and its applications in daily life. Dr. Bhutti still remembers how both talked about the impermanence of worldly activities. With such religious minded parents, the children of the family matured in the same way.
At the age of ten she left Tibet and resettled in Darjeeling, India with her parents. Thereafter, Dr. Bhutti joined the Central School for Tibetans in Darjeeling. After graduating from school, she went to the Tibetan Medical Institute in Dharamsala, India. Dr. Bhutti studied there for seven years and after having received her Tibetan medical degree was sent back to Darjeeling to form a new branch institute. Tibetan medicine was non-existent in Darjeeling during those days. With great determination and after many struggles she was finally able to establish a new Tibetan medical branch Institute. Dr. Bhutti then served the community there for twenty-five years. In the year 1992, the United States government was very kind to the Tibetan people. One-thousand Tibetans were given the opportunity to legally immigrate. Out of each family one member was given a visa. Dr. Bhutti’s husband was one of them and it took six years for Dr. Bhutti and her two children to join her husband in the United States. At present she practices in Boston, Massachusetts.
In 2007 Dr. Keyzom Bhutti received a letter from the Office of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama acknowledging the work she has undertaken to help the Tibetan elderly through this charitable non-profit.
“We are visitors on this planet. We are here for one hundred years at the very most. During that period we must try to do something good, something useful, with our lives. If you contribute to other people’s happiness, you will find the true meaning of life.” – H.H. the Dalai Lama
