Bullying — Buddhism

What the specification asks for

Paper 1, Section 3, 3.3 (Buddhism). Assessed on AO1 (knowledge and understanding) and AO2 (analysis and evaluation), weighted equally. Incandio is aligned to this specification. It is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson, and it reproduces none of Pearson's indicative content — the point numbers are given so you can check every unit against your own copy.

1 · Understand it

Here is the hard case for every argument against bullying. Suppose the bully genuinely does not care about the person they are targeting — not a flicker. Arguments about the victim's worth simply do not reach them. Buddhism has an argument that does, and it works by talking about the bully instead.

What it means

Two parts of the teaching apply directly. The first undertaking forbids harming living beings, and Buddhist analysis applies it to psychological harm as well as physical. Right speech — one of the eight factors — forbids speech that is false, harsh, divisive or idle, which reaches mockery and exclusion as well as threats.

So far that is a prohibition, and every tradition on this course has one. The distinctively Buddhist point is about the person doing it: harming another is understood to damage the one who does it, because willed cruelty strengthens hatred in a mind that then has to live with it.

That works because consequences attach to intention. Cruelty is not a transaction that finishes when the victim recovers; it shapes the person who chose it. Which means the argument does not depend on the victim being valuable — the bully is damaging themselves whatever they think of their target.

And metta is trained deliberately towards difficult people, which gives a Buddhist a practice rather than only a rule. That is a real difference: most traditions tell you what not to do, and this one also hands you a method for the state of mind that produces it.

Why believers hold it

The reasoning is worth following slowly because it reaches a case the obvious arguments miss. Tell a bully their victim has dignity and it lands only if they already grant it. Tell them the cruelty is doing something to them, and the claim does not depend on their opinion of anybody else.

The honest objection is that self-interest is an unreliable motive, and somebody unmoved by their victim may be equally unmoved by a claim about their own mind. That is fair, and it should be conceded rather than argued past.

There is a second thing the tradition asks that other traditions do not, and it is genuinely difficult. Compassion is extended towards the bully — on the understanding that cruelty comes from suffering. It is essential to say what that is not: it is not approval, and it does not mean the harm should be allowed to continue. The practical response still includes stopping it.

And there is a gap an honest answer names. This tradition has less developed teaching about the bystander than Judaism or Islam do — there is no equivalent of a commandment against standing idly by. Saying so is more credible than manufacturing a Buddhist bystander doctrine, and examiners reward the accuracy.

Where it comes from

• Buddhist teaching — The Noble Eightfold Path; grouped as sila, samadhi and prajna (translated)

  Right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration.

  The fourth Noble Truth in practice, grouped into ethics (sila), meditation (samadhi) and wisdom (prajna).

  What it is doing here: Right speech is the direct address to verbal bullying — false, harsh, divisive and idle speech are all named, which reaches mockery and exclusion rather than only threats.

• Buddhist practice — The Five Precepts (pañca-sīla) (translated)

  To refrain from harming living beings, from taking what is not given, from sexual misconduct, from false speech, and from intoxicants.

  The basic ethical undertakings of lay Buddhists. They are training rules taken on voluntarily, not commandments imposed.

  What it is doing here: The first undertaking supplies the prohibition, and its wording about harming beings is what lets Buddhist analysis extend it to psychological harm.

• Buddhist teaching — The three poisons (or three roots): greed, hatred and delusion (translated)

  Lobha, dosa, moha — greed, hatred and delusion.

  The three roots of unskilful action, depicted at the hub of the wheel of life as a cockerel, a snake and a pig.

  What it is doing here: Explains the argument about the bully: cruelty expresses hatred and strengthens it, so the act feeds one of the roots the path exists to remove.

Where it bites

Mindfulness programmes are widely used in schools to help children notice anger before acting on it, which is this teaching turned into a classroom method rather than a rule on a wall. Buddhist school codes are often framed around the precepts, and loving-kindness practice is taught to children directly.

The distinctive practical instruction is about how to respond: understanding a bully's own unhappiness rather than retaliating. It is worth naming precisely, because retaliation is the natural response and the tradition is asking for something specific instead — and because a learner who can also say why that is not the same as accepting the treatment has understood the position rather than repeated it.

What people get wrong

People think: Bullying is only wrong if it is physical.

Actually: Right speech names harsh and divisive speech specifically, and Buddhist analysis applies the first undertaking to psychological harm. The tradition's own attention to speech makes the extension unavoidable rather than generous.

People think: Having compassion for a bully means letting them get away with it.

Actually: Compassion and permission are different, and the tradition says so. Understanding that cruelty comes from suffering is not approval of it, consequences are unaffected, and the practical response still includes stopping the harm.

People think: Buddhists disagree about whether bullying is acceptable.

Actually: They do not, and inventing a division here is manufactured disagreement — a recorded failure that loses marks. Every tradition applies the precepts and right speech to it. Where an honest answer does find a gap is the bystander, which this tradition addresses less than some others.

What the examiner expects you to understand

• Use right speech by name and give its content — false, harsh, divisive, idle. It is the most precise piece of Buddhist material available on this unit and it is routinely left out.
• The strongest argument is the one about the bully, because it reaches somebody who does not value the victim. Say why it reaches them, rather than just stating that cruelty harms the doer.
• Do not manufacture a Buddhist disagreement about whether bullying is wrong. There is not one, and inventing divisions is a recorded error.
• Naming the bystander gap honestly is worth more than filling it. This tradition has less developed teaching there than Judaism or Islam, and saying so shows you know the material rather than assuming symmetry.
• Concede the objection: a bully unmoved by their victim may be equally unmoved by a claim about their own mind. An argued answer that grants that is stronger than one which does not notice it.

2 · Grade 9 Notes

Core belief / issue

Buddhism analyses bullying through the first precept, which forbids harming living beings, and through right speech, which forbids speech that is false, harsh, divisive or idle. But the distinctively Buddhist point is about the bully: harming another is understood to damage the one doing it, because it cultivates hatred in a mind that has to live with it. The specification also links this to building a peaceful society.

Key terminology

Incandio's mark schemes credit the religion's own vocabulary; spelling variants are accepted, a vague paraphrase is not.

Right speech

The path factor forbidding false, harsh, divisive and idle speech; the direct Buddhist address to verbal bullying.

First precept

The undertaking to refrain from harming living beings, which covers psychological as well as physical harm.

Metta

Loving kindness, trained deliberately including towards those one finds difficult.

Dosa

Hatred; the poison bullying expresses and strengthens.

Kamma

Intentional action and its results; bullying is willed action and therefore kammically weighty.

What Buddhism teaches

• shared — The first precept forbids harming living beings, and Buddhist teaching applies it to psychological harm as well as physical.
• shared — Right speech forbids harsh and divisive speech specifically, which reaches mockery and exclusion as well as threats.
• shared — Harming another damages the one who does it, because willed cruelty strengthens hatred in the mind that produces it.
• shared — Metta is trained towards difficult people deliberately, which gives a Buddhist a practice rather than only a prohibition.

Why it teaches this

The reasoning is that kamma attaches to intention, so cruelty is not a transaction that ends when the victim recovers. It shapes the actor. That produces an argument against bullying that does not depend on the victim being valuable — the bully is harming themselves whatever the victim's status — which reaches the case where a bully genuinely does not care about the person they target.

Sources of authority

• Buddhist practice — The Five Precepts (pañca-sīla) (translated)

  To refrain from harming living beings, from taking what is not given, from sexual misconduct, from false speech, and from intoxicants.

  The basic ethical undertakings of lay Buddhists. They are training rules taken on voluntarily, not commandments imposed.

  How to use it: Because they are undertakings rather than commands, breaking one is a failure of training rather than a sin against God — which is why Buddhist ethics has no concept of divine punishment.

  What it does not settle: They are not absolutes with fixed applications; intention matters, and Buddhists differ on abortion and on eating meat.

• Buddhist teaching — The Noble Eightfold Path; grouped as sila, samadhi and prajna (translated)

  Right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration.

  The fourth Noble Truth in practice, grouped into ethics (sila), meditation (samadhi) and wisdom (prajna).

  How to use it: It is a path rather than a creed, so the Buddhist answer to 'what is the purpose of life?' is a practice and not a proposition.

  What it does not settle: Emphasis differs sharply between Theravada, Zen and Pure Land practice.

• Buddhist teaching — The three poisons (or three roots): greed, hatred and delusion (translated)

  Lobha, dosa, moha — greed, hatred and delusion.

  The three roots of unskilful action, depicted at the hub of the wheel of life as a cockerel, a snake and a pig.

  How to use it: Naming delusion as a root, rather than only greed and hatred, is what makes the Buddhist answer distinctive: wrongdoing is a mistake about reality before it is a moral failure.

  What it does not settle: There is no concept of sin against a deity here. Writing 'sin' without qualification misrepresents the tradition, and the specification's own wording invites exactly that error.

• The Pali Canon — Metta Sutta (Sutta Nipata 1:8); the four brahmaviharas (translated)

  As a mother protects her only child, so let one cultivate boundless goodwill towards all beings.

  Metta — loving kindness — extended without limit, with compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity.

  How to use it: Metta is cultivated deliberately in meditation, so Buddhist compassion is a trained capacity rather than a feeling — which explains why meditation is an ethical practice and not just a calming one.

  What it does not settle: It does not by itself prescribe an action in any particular case.

Different interpretations

• Harm read as physical and read as including psychological damage; the tradition's own analysis of speech makes the second unavoidable.
• The bystander read as uninvolved and read as implicated through their own state of mind; Buddhism has less developed bystander teaching than Judaism or Islam, and an honest answer says so.
• Compassion for the bully read as excusing them and read as recognising that cruelty comes from suffering; the second is the tradition's position and it is not the same as approval.

Differences within Buddhism

There is no Buddhist disagreement about whether bullying is wrong, and inventing one would be manufactured disagreement. All traditions apply the precepts and right speech to it.

The traditions broadly agree here. Saying so is a stronger answer than inventing a division.

Application to the issue

It shows in mindfulness programmes in schools, which are widely used to help children notice anger before acting on it; in Buddhist school codes framed around the precepts; in loving-kindness practice taught to children; and in the emphasis in Buddhist teaching on responding to a bully with an understanding of their own unhappiness rather than with retaliation.

Arguments supporting

• The Buddhist argument reaches a bully who does not care about the victim. — It shows the bully is harming themselves, which does not depend on valuing anyone else. (buddhism)
  Answered by: Self-interest is an unreliable motive, and a bully unmoved by their victim may be equally unmoved by claims about their own mind.
• Training goodwill gives a practical method rather than only a rule. — Metta meditation includes a difficult person by design. (shared)
  Answered by: A victim being asked to cultivate goodwill towards their bully may reasonably feel that the burden has been misplaced.

Arguments challenging

• Compassion for the bully lets them off. — Understanding why someone is cruel does not stop the cruelty. (non-religious)
  Answered by: Buddhism distinguishes compassion from permission and does not hold that consequences should be waived; the practical response still includes stopping the harm.
• Buddhism has less to say to the bystander than other traditions. — There is no equivalent of the Jewish commandment against standing idly by. (shared)
  Answered by: That is a fair observation; the Buddhist route is through compassion and right action rather than through a specific bystander duty, and it is less pointed.

Secular / non-religious perspective

Humanists condemn bullying on grounds of empathy and harm, and locate remedies in supervision, education and institutional culture. Buddhist mindfulness programmes are now widely used in secular schools for exactly this purpose, which makes this the clearest case on the specification of a religious practice being adopted for non-religious reasons.

Examinable throughout Paper 1. Nothing here earns a mark on Paper 2.

Evaluation

The hinge: Whether the reason bullying is wrong is what it does to the victim or what it does to the bully. Buddhism is the only tradition here that leads with the second.

Defensible conclusions

• The Buddhist argument is the most unusual on this specification, and it reaches a case others do not: the bully who is genuinely indifferent to their target.
• It is weakest on the bystander, where Jewish and Islamic teaching are more direct, and an honest comparison says so.
• The practical remedies are the same across traditions, and Buddhism's distinctive contribution is a trainable practice rather than a stronger prohibition.

Not defensible

• Manufacturing a Buddhist disagreement about bullying; there is not one.
• Presenting compassion for the bully as approval of the bullying.

Exam use

• Identify · 3 marks — Three Buddhist attitudes to bullying, or three ways Buddhists work towards a peaceful society.
• Outline · 4 marks — Two developed. 'Buddhists hold that harming others damages the one who does it (1) — because cruelty strengthens hatred in the mind that produces it (1).'
• Explain · 6 marks — Explain why bullying is wrong for Buddhists: the first precept, right speech, the effect on the bully's own mind, and metta.
• Evaluate · 12 marks — 'A peaceful society begins with how people treat each other every day.' Buddhism's mind-first account is the strongest material for the affirmative.

Common mistakes

• Writing a general anti-bullying answer with no Buddhist vocabulary.
• Inventing a Buddhist disagreement to create evaluation.
• Describing the precepts as commandments from a deity.

“Some Muslims believe there is one God and some believe there are several.” — Tawhid — the absolute oneness of God — is the foundation of Islam, and shirk is its gravest offence. This is not a matter on which Muslims differ.

Write instead: Where a belief is shared, say it plainly. Where it genuinely divides traditions — the Imamate, the authority of hadith, whether pilgrimage is required — name the traditions and what each holds. The instinct behind this error is right: the grid rewards different viewpoints. The fix is to find the REAL disagreement in the topic, not to invent one.

“Buddhists believe sin is disobeying God.” — Buddhism has no creator God to disobey. Unskilful action (akusala) harms the person who does it and others through kamma; it is a mistake rooted in greed, hatred and delusion, not an offence against a deity.

Write instead: Buddhists speak of unskilful action rooted in the three poisons — greed, hatred and delusion — and of akusala kamma, which brings unwelcome results. The specification's own Buddhist wording for 1.3 names avijja, kilesa and the three poisons. The specification titles 1.3 'Selfishness, greed, ignorance and sin', which invites the error. A learner writing on Buddhism should use the tradition's own vocabulary and say why 'sin' does not fit.

Grade 9 insight

Buddhism's primary objection to bullying is what it does to the BULLY. That sounds like a lesser argument until you notice which case it reaches: the bully who is genuinely indifferent to their victim's suffering, on whom every argument from the victim's dignity lands harmlessly. A Level 4 answer uses that to show why a tradition centred on the mind produces a different anti-cruelty argument from one centred on the person harmed, and why the two are complementary rather than competing.

Carry on through Buddhism

• Previous unit: 3.2 · Peace, reconciliation and forgiveness
• Next unit: 3.4 · Sin and crime
• Bullying in the other religions: Christianity · Hinduism · Islam · Judaism · Sikhism
• All of Buddhism · Incandio Religious Studies · The 4RS1 specification