Buddhism

In his best-selling book on the environment, The World we Have, he writes: "We have constructed a system we can't control. It imposes itself on us, and we become its slaves and victims.

"We have created a society in which the rich become richer and the poor become poorer, and in which we are so caught up in our own immediate problems that we cannot afford to be aware of what is going on with the rest of the human family or our planet Earth.

"In my mind I see a group of chickens in a cage disputing over a few seeds of grain, unaware that in a few hours they will all be killed."