They employ a variety of methods including direct action to oppose animal agriculture.
It has long subscribed to the belief that all life forms including that of non-human animals are sacred and deserving of respect, and extolls kindness and compassion as utmost virtues worthy of cultivation.
Buddhism unreservedly embraces all living beings in its ethical cosmology without discrimination on grounds of species, race, or creed.
The Buddha was so adamant and protective of the more vulnerable members of the moral community—namely the animals—that, as recorded in Dhammapada, he declared: "He who has laid aside the cudgel that injures any creature whether moving or still, who neither slays nor causes to be slain—him I call an Arya (Noble person)."
The earliest reference to the idea of non-violence to animals (pashu-ahimsa), apparently in a moral sense, is in the Kapisthala Katha Samhita of the Yajurveda (KapS 31.11), a Hindu text written about the 8th century BCE.