World To-Do List “What is one to do about all the ills in the world?” That has been the central question in my life. And I can’t answer that for you; only for myself. At age sixteen, I read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. World War II and Auschwitz were still fresh in people’s mind; and even then your question had occurred to me. So, I was interested to know: How can I influence anyone to be more peaceful? In my mid-twenties I was involved in the radical end of the peace movement (the nonviolent activists inspired by Gandhi’s and Martin Luther King’s social change): we might be engaged in an anti-draft rally in front of an Army recruitment center, say, and be harangued by a group of self-appointed “patriots,” who knew that we were pacifists—and they weren’t. I came to recognize that they were motivated by ideals, just as we were. I also concluded, through studying world history, that our social problems were not going to be eradicated through politics or religion, both of which are basically self-serving. I began to notice that where people’s behavior is dictated by outward constraints, such as laws or armed force, they will revert back to their preferred behaviors as soon as the pressure is removed. Only when a person is acting out of his own heartfelt desire will he eagerly continue, in the course of action chosen. In my thirties, I began to study Zen Buddhism because I sensed that enlightenment is basically a change of heart at a fundamental level; and that, historically, enlightenment
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