Question: I contributed money for a group gift, but later realised that it wasn’t an animal-friendly gift. Do I create negative karma because of this? Answer: About pooling of money for the hamper, if it wasn’t intentional to neglect asking, it’s okay. It’s just unmindfulness. You just need to be more mindful before agreeing to [...]

Your karma makes your world go round. Our karma makes our world go haywire too. [i] We All Create Karma Among the various natural laws of cause and effect, one of them is the law of karma, which is the universal law of moral cause and effect. Whatever we intentionally think, say or do plants [...]

I find it hard to understand people who complain of gory videos, of animals being killed because this is the true reality TV. I find it hard to understand people who choose to turn away, and continue to devour their flesh, in spite of catching glimpses of the bloody truth. I find it hard to [...]

Question: A friend says my caring for stray cats is due to me ‘owing’ them karmically, though I feel that it is out of compassion, more out of empathy than sympathy. What do you think? Answer: Instead of thinking in terms of ‘owing’ or not, what we can say is that you have karmic affinity [...]

Something written for the press that went unpublished: I refer to the letter ‘Town council right in culling pigeons‘ (Mar 14), which stated that it was right to poison pigeons which dirtied HDB blocks. However, since pigeons naturally flock to where humans leave food, it is obvious that the cause of the problem lies with [...]

Based on the book, the ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ movie reminds me of a phase of growing up that is probably more terrifying than being smack in the middle of the adolescent years. When is that? It’s the beginning of the above – that awkward transition when one tries to hasten growing up – [...]

This is an abridged version of a few interesting ‘chats’ with many people, on whether it is alright to kill bugs on purpose. If you find it too long, I recommend reading only D‘s entries, which speak up for the practice of Metta (Loving-kindness), while the rest, unfortunately, mostly kind of try to rationalise killing [...]

Among all negative karma, that of killing is the heaviest. Among all positive karma, that for releasing life is the highest. – Acharya Nagarjuna (The Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom) Question: A common question on the Buddhist practice of animal or life liberation is this – ‘After setting free a certain kind of [...]

Talking about compassion, how can we not mention how Acharya Asanga had carefully licked the maggots out of a dog’s wound with his tongue and moved them safely to his freshly sliced thigh flesh? For many of us, we would have chosen to kill the maggots in order to save the dog’s life. Compared to [...]

Watch the above. Enough said.

The best short video so far, from http://www.mercyforanimals.org/dairy on the dark truth behind the dairy industry. Please seriously consider giving up any food that has dairy content. Evidence gathered during the investigation reveals: ~ Cows with bloody open wounds, prolapsed uteruses, pus-filled infections, and swollen joints, apparently left to suffer without veterinary care ~ “Downed” [...]

From Thich Nhat Hanh’s book ‘The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology’: The food we eat can reveal the interconnectedness of the universe, the Earth, all living beings, and ourselves. Each bite of vegetable, each drop of soy sauce, each piece of tofu contains the sun and of the Earth. We [...]

Warning: This is a proper vampire movie, where vampires adhere to the classic rules. E.g. they do not glitter with fairy dust in the sun without bursting into flames during non-twilight hours! (To avoid confusion in monster lore, Twilight’s ‘vampires’ shouldn’t be called so in the first place!) What if the situation is in reverse? [...]

Jat: So you don’t eat chocolate that has milk? Yah: Nope. Jat: Hmm… seems like a dull life. Yah: Nope, not a dull life – just a more compassionate way of life. I still enjoy a bar of dark chocolate once a while, but I make sure it contains no animal products like milk, honey [...]

The epic movie ‘Avatar’ is a must-see – for every generation, every kid and adult. Its dramatic and educational messages are direct and simple, but portrayed in probably the most powerful and inspiring manner to date on the silver screen. In the future, after fully milking the Earth’s minerals for energy, humans travel to another [...]