Shining World Compassion Award Recipient: Mr. Bob Isaacson (vegan) and Dharma Voices for Animals

Today’s Shining World Award program features a compassionate soul from California, USA, who has dedicated his life to imparting the loving message of Ahimsa through Buddha’s teachings. Eleven years ago, Mr. Bob Isaacson co-founded the non-profit organization, Dharma Voices for Animals (DVA) when he recognized that many Buddhist practitioners in the US were unable to make a connection between their diet and the essence of compassion.

Let us now hear some of Bob Isaacson’s upcoming ideas on his project expansion. “So, now we're in three Buddhist countries, Thailand, and Sri Lanka and Vietnam, that have a combined population of 140 million Buddhists. But there're still other countries including China, Myanmar, Bhutan, and other Buddhist countries, and other countries where there's a large Buddhist population. We want to expand here in the United States, because this is where most of our members are.”

DVA reaches out to the public by conducting vegan cooking classes that are also currently available via ZOOM to the people of Âu Lạc (Vietnam). Similar initiatives have been extended to the neighboring country where kitchen staff in the Wat, commonly known as the Thai Buddhist temples, are taught how to cook and serve easy and scrumptious plant-based meals. “15 million are Buddhists. So we're doing 10,000 vegan cookbooks. I think we're distributing them to the 8000 Buddhist temples, so that people have a resource.” “However, our film, “Animals and the Buddha,” has been translated into 12 different languages, including all of the major Asian languages, Take a look at the film, learn what you can, and then share that with other people.”

Upon hearing about his high-minded endeavours, our Most Beloved Supreme Master Ching Hai: “Gratefully present the Shining World Compassion Award to Mr. Bob Isaacson and Dharma Voices for Animals, with a humble contribution of US$10,000 as a token of loving support for their noble work in promoting Buddhist teachings of compassion for the noble people of the animal kingdom. May Buddha always bless you and protect you.”