"Nothing is more precious than peace," writes Daisaku Ikeda, U.N. Peace Prize recipient, university founder, poet and, for the past two decades, president of the world's leading Buddhist lay association, the 12-million-member Soka Gakkai International. FOR THE SAKE OF PEACE: Seven Paths to Global Harmony, A Buddhist Perspective--the culmination of 20 years of university lectures and proposals to the United Nations--expresses Dr. Ikeda's passionate yet practical vision of the way to achieve peace in the new millennium. <BR> With a vision informed by the life-affirming teachings of Nichiren, the 13th-century Japanese Buddhist teacher and reformer, as well as great world thinkers and philosophers like Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Tolstoy, Gandhi and others, Dr. Ikeda approaches the issue of peace from many angles. Prominent among the topics addressed are economics, the environment, the power of dialogue, the proper role of religion, the compassionate spirit of the bodhisattva, the importance of culture, the ro