“It is only the innocent mind which knows what love is, and the innocent mind can live in the world which is not innocent.”

“In order to observe the movement of your own mind and heart, of your whole being, you must have a free mind, not a mind that agrees and disagrees, taking sides in an argument, disputing over mere w...”

“So if you can look at all things without allowing pleasure to creep in - at a face, a bird, the colour of a sari, the beauty of a sheet of water shimmering in the sun, or anything that gives deligh...”

“So if you understand that where there is a search for pleasure there must be pain, live that way if you want to, but don't just slip into it. If you want to end pleasure, though, which is to end pa...”

“To understand ourselves needs no authority either of yesterday or of a thousand years because we are living things, always moving, flowing, never resting.”

“We need a tremendous amount of energy and we dissipate it through fear but when there is this energy which comes from throwing off every form of fear, that energy itself produces the radical inward...”

“Once I saw a chimpanzee gaze at a particularly beautiful sunset for a full 15 minutes, watching the changing colors [and then] retire to the forest without picking a pawpaw for supper.”

“In an era of globalization, we recognize that we are part of a global society, but we have no idea how to make such a society work. So far, no unified vision or leadership has emerged to guide us i...”

“It is with eight lengthy legs we use to catch food, balance and knit a beautiful silk bed,but as babies we had lost our bones and skin, and hence our legs we had shed.”

“The recognition that human beings are specifically and deliberately responsible for whatever aberrances farm animals may embody, that their discordances reflect our, not their, primary disruption o...”

“I made the choice to be vegan because I will not eat (or wear, or use) anything that could have an emotional response to its death or captivity. I can well imagine what that must feel like for our ...”

“Know that the same spark of life that is within you, is within all of our animal friends, the desire to live is the same within all of us...”

“Sometimes we take leaps of faith, and sometimes we take tiny steps. Even the tiniest step can require a lot of courage. Like climbing out of denial and admitting my real need for help. Like trustin...”

“Because the truth is, while bulimia is a devastating illness I would wish upon no one, it has taught me about the fragility of life and the vital need for compassion. Today, Im quick to love and th...”

“So many nights, I stared out at the inky black ocean, believing that if I could only learn how to eat again and keep my hands out of my throat, that would be enough. I prayed hard and desperately t...”