The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. was the catalyst that sparked the young Larry Ward’s journey into a life of planetary peacemaking. Ward’s introduction to Buddhist practice began in Calcutta in 1977, but it was when he met Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in 1991 that the practice became truly central to his life. He is ordained as a Dharma teacher in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village tradition and has accompanied Thich Nhat Hanh on peace-building missions around the world. Ward brings twenty-five years of experience in organizational change and local community renewal in twenty countries to his work as advisor to the Executive Mind Leadership Institute at the Drucker School of Management in Claremont, California, and as director of the Lotus Institute, which offers Buddhist practice for changemakers on the journey of individual and collective liberation.