The most important thing to remember in life is to be kind.

Remember that everyone you see and every situation you find yourself in has come from inside of you; you have created your reality by how you have treated others in your past.

Because we lack sharp claws, aren't very fast on our feet, and aren't exactly endowed with lightning reflexes, it would be very difficult if not impossible for us to run down an animal, catch it with our bare hands, and tear through its fur and skin in order to eat it. Biologically, we are designed to be frugivorous herbivores eating mainly fruits, seeds, roots, and leaves.

When many people start practicing yoga, they are amazed to discover that their body isn't just something used to carry their head around - their body has intelligence too. We start to feel how our actions affect the lives of others - this could be described as becoming political, because the word politic means the "greater body" - it refers to the community of others with whom we share the Earth.

Fishing is not a benign activity; it is hunting in the water.

Everyone is caught in the web of his or her own actions and is bound by past karmas (actions). Good and bad are relative terms. Every action takes one to the next place.

It has been an obsession of human beings to create a hierarchy that places the human species on top and lumps all the "other animals" together beneath us. The resulting "speciesism" allows us to look upon animals as less deserving of all manner of rights and considerations than humans. To support this lower status, humans have argued that animals act instinctually; don't have souls; don't feel physical pain like we do; and lack self-consciousness, cognitive intelligence, emotional feelings, morality, and ethics.