New Delhi, April 26: As geopolitical tensions between Iran, the United States, and Israel intensify — threatening global energy corridors, disrupting trade networks, and pushing vulnerable populations to the brink — the ancient teachings of Buddha Dhamma, preserved through the Nalanda tradition, are drawing renewed attention as a credible and practical framework for conflict resolution. Far from being abstract philosophy, these teachings offer a structured, cause-driven approach to understanding and defusing modern crises rooted in greed, mistrust, and strategic overreach.

The Buddha as Conflict Mediator: Historical Precedents

A defining aspect of Buddha Dhamma that is often overlooked in geopolitical discourse is the Buddha's direct intervention in real-world conflicts. The most cited example is the dispute over the Rohini River between the Shakya and Koliya clans. Rather than invoking scripture, the Buddha appealed to rational proportionality — questioning whether human lives were worth less than water — and resolved the standoff without bloodshed.

Yet the same tradition also acknowledges limits. When his own Shakya clan faced destruction as a consequence of past actions, the Buddha chose not to intervene, recognising that the law of cause and effect — karma — cannot always be overridden. This dual model is instructive: peace efforts must be persistent and sincere, but also grounded in a clear-eyed understanding of deeper causation.

Modern conflict resolution, critics argue, fails precisely here — intervention without introspection, negotiation without accountability, and strategy without moral clarity.

Greed as a Systemic Force in West Asia's Conflicts

Buddha Dhamma identifies greed (lobha), hatred (dosa), and ignorance (moha) as the three root causes of human suffering. In contemporary geopolitics, greed has evolved from an individual failing into a systemic force — operating through resource control, strategic dominance, and economic leverage.

The conflicts in West Asia, including the current Iran-US-Israel tensions, cannot be cleanly separated from competition over energy routes, oil supply chains, and regional influence. These are routinely framed as matters of national security, but at their structural core lies an expansion of desire well beyond legitimate need.

The historical parallel is stark. Emperor Ashoka, following the devastating Kalinga War in approximately 261 BCE, recognised the moral bankruptcy of conquest driven by ambition. He adopted Dhamma as a governing principle — while still maintaining a defensive military. This distinction remains critical: defence for protection is fundamentally different from aggression for advantage.

Dependent Origination and the Fragility of Global Interdependence

One of Buddha Dhamma's most analytically powerful doctrines is Pratityasamutpada — dependent origination. Applied to geopolitics, this is not metaphysics but a causal map of conflict escalation. Today's global systems — energy supply chains, maritime shipping lanes, financial networks — are so deeply interconnected that disruption in one region cascades across continents.

A threat to the Strait of Hormuz, for instance, does not merely affect Iran or the United States; it reverberates through the import-dependent economies of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Nations that pursue resource control as a demonstration of strength frequently overlook that this very control creates systemic vulnerability through the interdependence it seeks to exploit.

Climate, Natural Resources, and the Ethics of Shared Survival

Buddha Dhamma teaches that wealth and resources must be used for personal needs, for supporting others, and for safeguarding the future — not hoarded or monopolised. The tradition also emphasises harmony with nature, warning that what is extracted without balance returns as collective suffering.

Climate change is the most visible modern expression of this imbalance. Natural resources — water, energy, arable land — are shared by ecological design but divided by human ambition. When they are monetised and controlled beyond equitable limits, structural inequality and violent conflict follow. The deeper illegality, in a civilisational sense, lies in violating the natural order that sustains all life.

A Call for Collective Moral Leadership

The teaching from the Dhammapada is unambiguous: hatred is never appeased by hatred; by non-hatred alone is it stilled. This is an eternal law. Applied to statecraft, this principle does not counsel passivity. It demands active, disciplined engagement to prevent greater harm — what the tradition calls non-violence (ahimsa) as a form of moral courage, not weakness.

The Samyutta Nikaya's teaching on dependent origination reinforces this: suffering arises from identifiable causes and conditions. Unless those root causes are addressed — the mistrust, the resource competition, the historical grievances — no agreement will hold beyond the short term. Responsibility at this moment extends beyond governments to thinkers, religious leaders, philosophers, and senior political figures who must raise a universal voice for restraint.

The window for wisdom-driven intervention remains open, but history consistently demonstrates that wars, once initiated, develop their own momentum far beyond the intentions of those who begin them. The world stands at a civilisational inflection point: either humanity recognises its shared dependence and acts decisively for peace, or it allows conflict to expand until it becomes irreversibly self-destructive.

(Analysis based on the views of a former diplomat and strategic affairs expert. Perspectives expressed are personal.)