Reporting on the free medical treatment being provided for residents of Aba prefecture in Sichuan province has been demanding: I had to repeatedly warn myself not to portray the patients as beggars, or the doctors as saviors. It's a cliche that underscores too much coverage of philanthropic work.

Instead, I discovered a new angle in Aba: the relationship between the land and the people.

Many of the endemic diseases that affect Tibetan nomads are caused by their way of life, which is closely related to the land through their yaks. The time spent delivering free treatment also gave the urban doctors a chance to get to know the land and treat it with reverence out of respect for the religious beliefs of the local people.

A frequent perception of philanthropy is one of well-off people helping their less-fortunate counterparts, but the Tibetans in Chali, where I stayed for four days, were neither poor nor unhealthy.

Chali, means "learned" or "knowledgeable" in Tibetan, and the local people are familiar with classic Buddhist books because they are important educational materials in Tibetan society. Of the city's 7,000 residents, about 600 are monks and nuns who receive donations from the locals, and offer prayers in return.

The locals make their livings by selling ingredients for Chinese traditional medicines found on the grassland, herding yaks and interacting with tourists. Average annual incomes in some affluent parts of town are comparable with those of some of the doctors from Beijing and Shanghai who arrived to provide free treatment.

The average lifespan in Chali is about 80 years, higher than the national average of about 72. Buddhism stresses reincarnation and retributive justice, which instills a positive outlook in the event of hardships and setbacks.

Although hundreds of elderly patients with chronic diseases were packed into the small township clinic, they waited in a tight, neat line that snaked out of the registration room. Many carried a handmade walking stick in one hand and a prayer wheel or strings of Buddhist prayer beads in the other, and they joked with each other and occasionally broke into laughter. The young people were all absent, having taken the yaks to the summer pastures.

Unlike the noisy hospitals of Beijing and Shanghai, which are filled with frowning, anxious faces, the clinic in Chali resembled a happy gathering of the senior members of a tribe. They regard their crooked legs and hunched backs as a normal part of life, and they see the walking stick as a "life gift", while prayer wheels and strings of beads are channels through which they can talk with the Buddha.

"Nature bends our bodies, but religion makes our spirits tall and straight," said a monk in his 90s.

His interpreter, Jamuco, a civil servant in 30s, said: "Tibetan people feel happy easily because we do not have so much to pursue."

He turned to a group of volunteer doctors and told them: "If you really want to feel happy, maybe the Tibetan people can provide 'free treatment' for you."

The treatment provided in Aba was mutually beneficial and conducted on an equal footing. During a speech he gave at a lunch, Li Guangwei, a neurologist at the Fuwai Hospital in Beijing who headed the medical team, suggested that the physicians should learn about and adopt the spirit of their patients in Aba.

Having been there, I now know what he means.