Just as compassion is the wish that all sentient beings be free of suffering, loving-kindness is the wish that all may enjoy happiness.

Our enemies provide us with a precious opportunity to practice patience and love. We should have gratitude toward them.

We need an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without.

The world has also learned that economic growth, by itself, cannot close the gap between rich and poor.

We begin from the recognition that all beings cherish happiness and do not want suffering. It then becomes both morally wrong and pragmatically unwise to pursue only one's own happiness oblivious to the feelings and aspirations of all others who surround us as members of the same human family. The wiser course is to think of others when pursuing our own happiness.

Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek.

Since we became Buddhist, we have lived in peace with them. We did not invade them. We did not want them to invade us. We have never declared war on China.