From Chinese Zen Thought to Global Peace: Reconstructing the ABCM Model of Conflict through Huineng’s Zen Philosophy
Keywords:
Huineng; Zen philosophy; security dilemma; ABCM model of conflict; mindfulness; conflict transformation; global peace-buildingAbstract
To fill the gap of the previous studies, the paper combines Huineng Zen philosophy with modern conflict theory. It starts with a constraint of mainstream international relations and peace studies, namely, although realism, liberalism, and constructivism describe significant aspects of power, institutions, identity, and cooperation, they are, nonetheless, inadequately concerned with the inner cognitive and inner ethical processes in which conflict is construed, escalated, and recreated. Though the ABC model of conflict, attitude, behaviour, and contradiction by Johan Galtung has psychological aspects, it has not theorised in detail the influence of reactive cognition, ego attachment, and dualistic perception on escalation in circumstances like the security dilemma. To fill this gap, the paper will enhance the ABC framework into an ABCM model by including mindfulness as an analytical and transformational dimension. Relying on the views of Huineng on non-duality, no-thought, non-attachment, and inseparability of ethics, meditation, and wisdom, the paper contends that structural contradictions, strategic rivalry, and the formation of identity and unquestioned perception are some of the forces behind conflict. The study follows a conceptual, interdisciplinary, and qualitative design methodology grounded in the textual and theoretical synthesis and case interpretation. It transfers the framework to the modern geopolitical conflicts, focusing especially on the security dilemma as a process whereby defensive purposes are redefined as offensive threats. The paper will argue that institutional design or power balancing is not enough in case we want to achieve sustainable peace. It needs to be changed in terms of how actors view self, other, threat, and responsibility. The article helps to enrich the peace and conflict literature by suggesting a cognition ethics mindfulness paradigm to connect inner transformation with structural peacebuilding and provides a fresh foundation of leadership, diplomacy, and conflict resolution in a disintegrated global order.
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