Our prime purpose in life is to serve others.

Because the existing education system is oriented towards materialistic goals we need to pay special attention to inner values such as tolerance, forgiveness, love and compassion.

By deceiving one another through false assumptions and misrepresentations there has been, in reality, a great lapse and delay in achieving the real goals.

Compassion and love give meaning to our activities and makes them constructive.

We must openly accept all ideologies and systems as a means of solving humanity's problems. One country, one nation, one ideology, one system is not sufficient.

Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility... Without this inner peace, no matter how comfortable your life is materially, you may still be worried, disturbed or unhappy because of circumstances.

People think of animals as if they were vegetables, and that is not right. We have to change the way people think about animals. I encourage the Tibetan people and all people to move toward a vegetarian diet that doesn’t cause suffering.