Volume 73. March 8, 2026
If it weren’t so serious, it would be laughable.
The Trump administration cannot articulate why they chose to go to war with Iran. Their rationale keeps shifting.
First, it was a response to the violent crackdown by Iranian authorities on protesters. Then, it’s a mission to take out the regime’s leadership to allow the Iranian people to take over their government. Then, it’s sold as a need to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. Then, it becomes an operation to dismantle Iran’s navy and ballistic missile capability. Finally, it’s billed as a preemptive strike to stop an “imminent” threat against the U.S. and Israel.
They’re selling reasons like brown bananas, but no one is buying what they’re selling. Public support for the war is tepid at best.
As the Trump administration struggles to get its story straight, people are dying, embassies are closing, Americans are scrambling to leave the region and gas prices are going up.
So, what’s the real reason for the war with Iran?
One word: ignorance.
A failure to see our connection to all people and all things.
Buddhism teaches that all life is deeply interconnected. Nothing exists in isolation. Nothing is independent. We are all one.
Your well-being is connected to my well-being.
One day a student asked, “Master, all things return to the One. What does the One return to?”
The Zen master answered, “When I was in Ch’ing Chou, I made a cloth shirt. It weighed seven pounds.”
A seven-pound shirt is an absurdity.
The point: If you want to achieve enlightenment, if you want to return to the One, if you want to achieve a state of peace and unity with all life, stop using your rational mind. Meditate.
Most people live in a dream world, a world of delusion, a world of separation. The illusory world seems real to us. But when we meditate, when we hear the sound of one hand clapping, then we transcend dualities such as good versus bad, friends versus enemies, the U.S. versus Iran. We become One.
So, get out of the dualistic mind. Get into the Buddha-mind.
Iran is not the enemy of the United States. Our enemies are fear, greed, money, lust for power, self-centeredness, ignorance and aggression.
How do we defeat these enemies?
The Buddha recommended morality, meditation and wisdom.
Be kind to one another.
Meditate.
And appreciate that all life is interconnected.
Now that’s a war worth waging.
The Buddha Times 