Less Meat More Love! Khyentse Foundation Announces New Book for Children

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Less Meat More Love! Khyentse Foundation Announces New Book for Children

By Craig C Lewis
March 13, 2024

Khyentse Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by the revered Bhutanese lama, filmmaker, and author Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, has announced the launch of a new children’s book titled Less Meat More Love! inspired by the teachings of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.

“The children’s book Less Meat More Love!, based on the project of the same name, has recently been released and is available both in paperback and as an e-book,” Khyentse Foundation said in an announcement shared with BDG. “Written and illustrated by Alicja Zmigrodzka, the book is intended to spread awareness of the benefits and joys of eating less meat as a way of expressing love for animals and contributing to a more sustainable world.”

Less Meat More Love!, a tale of friendship, courage, and compassion, tells the story of a young boy and his grandmother who receive a surprise visit from a purple gorilla after he crashes his yellow, banana-shaped airplane into a nearby tree. The boy and his granny fly around the world with the gorilla, visiting animal friends and freeing animals from farms and fish from nets.

In an open letter published on the Less Meat More Love website and shared on social media, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche noted:

Not only does eating less meat create the right causes and conditions to practice kindness and compassion, but it is also in our own self-interest. For instance, we know that eating a lot of meat is related to higher rates of heart disease, colon cancer, diabetes and other health problems.

As well, eating meat directly or indirectly leads to serious ecological impacts like deforestation, global warming, overuse of water and land, and species extinction. And scientists are now even warning that eating some meats can cause new diseases and greater pandemics.

So for both the earth and our own health, as well as to save lives and create merit on our Buddhist path, eating less meat is such a simple act that yet produces so much benefit. (Letter from Rinpoche: LESS MEAT MORE LOVE)

“The Less Meat More Love project amplified its message by placing advertisements and billboards in trains, stations, and airports across cities such as Singapore, Taipei, and Kathmandu,” Khyentse Foundation added. “As well, a multilingual animation directed by Queena Li was shared on social media platforms.” (Khyentse Foundation)

Less Meat More Love! is available as an ebook in English and Chinese (simplified and traditional), which can be downloaded here for a small donation, and is also on sale in paperback in English and in Vietnamese. All profits from the book go to Khyentse Foundation.

Khyentse Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche in 2001. Its aim is to promote the Buddha’s teaching and support all traditions of Buddhist study and practice. The foundation’s activities include major text preservation and translation projects, support for monastic colleges in Asia, a worldwide scholarship and awards program, and development of Buddhist studies at major universities, alongside training and development for Buddhist teachers and developing new modes of Dharma-inspired education for children.

Khyentse Foundation’s achievements over the last 20 years include: more than 15 million pages of Buddhist texts preserved and made available online; education provided for the children of more than 1,000 families; support for Buddhist studies at more than 35 major universities through endowed chairs and professorships, graduate support, and the establishment of Buddhist studies centers; more than US$1 million in sponsorship for Buddhist teacher-training granted; sacred Buddhist texts translated into more than 15 languages, thanks to the efforts of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, the Kumarajiva Project, and the Khyentse Vision Project; over US$1.8 million in funding granted to uphold Buddhism in its mother countries, including grassroots partnerships to revitalize interest in Buddhism in India; more than 2,000 scholarships and awards in recognition of excellence in Buddhist study and practice; support for over 3,000 monks and nuns to maintain the tradition of Buddhist scholarship in a monastic setting; and more than 120 open-access Ashoka and Trisong grants distributed to support Dharma and well-being programs.

Craig C Lewis

Craig Lewis grew up in a transplanted Scottish family in southern England before setting off against all advice to seek light and wisdom in far-off places, rather than staying put and looking within. After repeated encounters with the Buddhadharma as a journalist in Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and across Asia, he eventually found refuge as senior editor at BDG, where he reports and writes on the diversity of contemporary manifestations of the Dharma. Craig is also a keen mountain trekker and photographer, finding particular inspiration in the peoples, cultures, and Buddhist expressions of the Himalaya. In his column for BDG, “Chasing Light,” Craig seeks to document encounters, experiences, and epiphanies resulting from his own tentative and faltering path toward liberation. Contact: [email protected]

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