"As Buddhists we are meant, we are urged to direct metta towards all living beings. That doesn't just mean all human beings, it means all animals, insects, plants, birds, beasts of every kind. So this is the basis, we may say, of our ecological concern as Buddhists: we wish well towards all living beings."

(The Next Twenty Years, WBO Day 1988)

"It is not that you just sit on your meditation mat radiating metta towards the world but keeping well out of the way of the world. It is that metta enters into your action and expresses itself in terms of non-violent action for the benefit of others."

(Questions and Answers, Guhyaloka, 1988)

"We are being warned that certain natural resources are finite and that we are using them all up at an alarming rate; more often then not, not only using them up at an alarming rate but using them in a most wasteful fashion. So Buddhists, those who try to follow the Dharma, should be very aware of this and should try to use everything of natural origin very carefully indeed... The same principle applies to our use of the natural environment: we shouldn't destroy it or spoil it in any way, as, for instance, through pollution."

(Nature, Man and Enlightenment, 1976)

"Observance of the First Precept will, in fact, naturally result...in one's feeling concern for the environment"

(The Ten Pillars of Buddhism, 1984)