Human relationships — Buddhism

What the specification asks for

Paper 1, Section 2, 2.4 (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 a question that separates two kinds of ethics. Is a sexual act wrong because it is on a list, or because of what it does to somebody? Almost every tradition on this course answers with some version of the first. Buddhism answers with the second, and once you see that, a whole set of its positions stop looking surprising and start looking inevitable.

What it means

The specification names the Five Precepts and the paramitas as containing the principles of relationships. The one that governs this unit is the third: an undertaking to refrain from sexual misconduct. Read that word carefully — misconduct, not a list of acts.

Buddhism defines the misconduct by harm. Deceiving a partner is misconduct. Coercing somebody is misconduct. Breaking a commitment other people relied on is misconduct. What makes an act wrong here is what it does, and there is no enumerated list of forbidden pairings anywhere behind it.

The paramitas are the perfections — generosity, ethics, patience, energy, meditation and wisdom — cultivated especially in Mahayana practice, and they frame relationships as things you bring qualities to rather than rules you keep inside.

Two more words carry the positive half. Metta is loving kindness, the wish that beings be happy, extended to everybody without preference. Karuna is compassion, the wish that they be free from suffering. And upekkha — equanimity — is the one that stops the whole thing collapsing into possessiveness: it is what keeps love from becoming a demand that the other person never change.

Why believers hold it

Follow the harm criterion and the tradition's shape makes sense. A rule-based ethic has to explain why deceit inside a permitted relationship is wrong; a harm-based one explains it immediately. A rule-based ethic has to explain why a pairing that harms nobody is forbidden; a harm-based one finds the question puzzling and says so.

That is why Buddhism's conclusions look close to a secular consent-and-harm ethics while the reasoning underneath is different. The difference is worth stating precisely, because it is the interesting part: Buddhism weighs the effect on the actor's own mind as well as on the other person. Acting from craving does something to you, whoever consented — and that is a consideration secular ethics rarely puts on the scales at all.

The warning about attachment needs handling carefully or it produces nonsense. Buddhism does not ask anybody not to love. What it warns against is clinging — possessiveness, and the demand that the other person stay as they are. Love and clinging are being distinguished, not equated, and an answer that has Buddhism forbidding love has confused the two.

Metta is also not a feeling you wait for. It is a trained capacity with a formal method, which is why metta meditation exists as a practice rather than as an aspiration.

Where it comes from

• 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 specification's own named content — quote the third and note that it says misconduct rather than listing acts, which is the whole argument of the unit in one word.

• 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.

  What it is doing here: The positive half. Use it to show that goodwill is extended to everybody without preference, which is what makes Buddhist love a practice rather than a preference.

• 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 and right action sit inside the path, so relationship conduct is part of the training rather than a separate department of rules.

Where it bites

Metta meditation has a fixed order and it is worth knowing, because the order is an argument: oneself, then somebody you are grateful to, then a neutral stranger, then a difficult person, then all beings. The Sigalovada Sutta sets out reciprocal duties between spouses, parents, children and employers — duties running in both directions, which was unusual when it was stated.

Buddhist marriage has no sacramental status, which is why the questions that dominate the next two units for other traditions do not arise here in the same form. And right speech is applied inside relationships specifically, which is a nameable practice rather than a general goodwill.

What people get wrong

People think: Buddhism has a list of forbidden sexual acts.

Actually: The precept is stated in terms of misconduct and harm rather than as an enumeration. That is not vagueness — it is a different kind of ethic, and the absence of a doctrinal position on same-sex relationships is the strongest evidence that the harm criterion is doing the work it claims to.

People think: Buddhists must avoid love, because attachment causes suffering.

Actually: This confuses love with clinging. The objection is to possessiveness and to demanding that somebody never change, not to affection or commitment. Equanimity is the quality that keeps the two apart, and it is cultivated deliberately rather than being an absence of feeling.

People think: Buddhists are doctrinally split on same-sex relationships.

Actually: The variation is mostly cultural rather than doctrinal — conservative positions in some traditional cultures, affirming ones in many Western communities — and it follows from applying a harm criterion rather than from competing texts. Manufacturing a doctrinal split here loses marks, and saying accurately where the variation comes from earns them.

What the examiner expects you to understand

• Say that the third precept names misconduct rather than acts, and then say what defines it. That single distinction is the unit.
• Paper 1 examines non-religious belief throughout, and this is the closest convergence anywhere on the course: consent, honesty and harm are the same criteria a Humanist uses. Note the convergence AND the difference — the effect on the actor's own mind.
• Do not present the precepts as commandments with penalties, and do not have Buddhism forbidding love. Both are recorded errors.
• The paramitas are named by the specification. Answers that give only the precepts have left required content unused.
• The Grade 9 move is the neutral stranger in the middle of the metta sequence. Not the enemy, who at least provokes something — the person you have no feelings about at all. Buddhism treats indifference rather than hostility as the real obstacle, and the practice is built around that diagnosis.

2 · Grade 9 Notes

Core belief / issue

The specification names the Five Precepts and the paramitas as containing the principles of relationships, and then names humanist and atheist thought. The third precept undertakes to refrain from sexual misconduct — and Buddhism defines misconduct by harm rather than by a list of prohibited acts, which is why Buddhist teaching about sexuality is less rule-shaped than the other five religions on this specification.

Key terminology

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

Third precept

The undertaking to refrain from sexual misconduct; defined by harm rather than by an enumerated list.

Paramitas (also paramis)

The perfections — generosity, ethics, patience, energy, meditation and wisdom — cultivated especially in Mahayana practice.

Metta (also maitri)

Loving kindness; the wish that beings be happy, extended to all without preference.

Karuna

Compassion; the wish that beings be free from suffering.

Upekkha (also upeksha)

Equanimity; the fourth brahmavihara, which prevents love becoming attachment.

What Buddhism teaches

• shared — The third precept undertakes to refrain from sexual misconduct, understood primarily as conduct that causes harm — deceit, coercion, and breaking commitments.
• shared — Relationships are governed by metta and karuna, which are cultivated deliberately rather than assumed to arise naturally.
• shared — Attachment is a cause of suffering, so Buddhist teaching about love distinguishes loving someone from clinging to them.
• divided — Buddhists differ over same-sex relationships, and the disagreement follows from the harm-based definition rather than from competing texts.
  • Theravada — Some teachers in traditional Theravada cultures maintain conservative positions influenced by local custom; others hold that the precept concerns harm and that orientation is irrelevant to it.
  • Zen — Western Zen communities have generally been affirming, and the Dalai Lama has spoken about the difficulty of applying old formulations to modern understanding.

Why it teaches this

The reasoning is that the precepts identify categories of harm rather than lists of acts. Sexual misconduct is misconduct because of what it does — deceiving a partner, coercing someone, breaking a commitment others relied on — and not because of a prohibition against particular pairings. That is why Buddhism's sexual ethics tends to converge with a consent-and-harm ethics while grounding it differently, in the effects on the mind as well as on the other person.

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.

• 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.

• The Pali Canon — the Buddha's first sermon — The Four Noble Truths; Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (Samyutta Nikaya 56:11) (translated)

  Dukkha; its cause is tanha; it can cease; the Eightfold Path is the way.

  The Buddha's diagnosis: existence is unsatisfactory, craving causes it, the cause can be removed, and there is a method.

  How to use it: It is a diagnosis and a treatment rather than a set of beliefs, which is why Buddhism can answer the problem of suffering without needing a God to defend.

  What it does not settle: It explains suffering's cause without invoking evil or judgement, so it does not answer the theodicy question — it dissolves it. Say that rather than forcing it into a Christian frame.

• 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.

Different interpretations

• Sexual misconduct read as adultery and coercion specifically, and read more broadly to include any sexually motivated harm; the second is the mainstream contemporary reading.
• Metta read as feeling and read as a trained capacity; the tradition treats it as the second, which is why metta meditation exists as a formal practice.
• Attachment read as the enemy of love and read as its counterfeit; the second is the more careful reading, since Buddhism does not ask people not to love.

Differences within Buddhism

The precept and the brahmaviharas are shared. Attitudes to same-sex relationships vary and are shaped more by culture than by scripture, which a strong answer should say rather than manufacture a doctrinal split.

• Theravada — Conservative in many traditional cultures; the precept itself is stated in terms of harm and misconduct.
• Mahayana — A wide range of positions; the paramitas frame relationships in terms of generosity and patience rather than rules.
• Zen — Western communities generally affirming, with an emphasis on the practitioner's own clarity about motivation.

Application to the issue

It shows in metta meditation, which trains goodwill systematically outwards from oneself to a stranger and then to a difficult person; in the emphasis on right speech within relationships; in Buddhist marriage having no sacramental status; and in the practical guidance in the Sigalovada Sutta, which sets out reciprocal duties between spouses, parents and children.

Arguments supporting

• Defining misconduct by harm is more defensible than an enumerated list. — It explains why deceit within a permitted relationship is wrong and why a prohibited pairing that harms nobody is puzzling. (buddhism)
  Answered by: It gives less guidance, and a person can be sincerely wrong about what harms.
• Training goodwill deliberately is more reliable than hoping to feel it. — Metta is a practice with a method, not an emotion one waits for. (shared)
  Answered by: Cultivated goodwill directed equally at everyone may be a different thing from the particular love a relationship requires.

Arguments challenging

• Warning against attachment undermines committed relationships. — Marriage involves precisely the attachment Buddhism identifies as a cause of suffering. (non-religious)
  Answered by: Buddhism distinguishes love from clinging: the objection is to possessiveness and to the demand that the other never change, not to commitment.
• A harm-based ethic is indistinguishable from a secular one. — Consent and harm are the same criteria a Humanist uses. (non-religious)
  Answered by: Buddhism adds the effect on the actor's own mind, which is a genuine additional consideration and one secular ethics rarely weighs.

Secular / non-religious perspective

Atheist and Humanist attitudes take consent, honesty and harm avoidance as the whole of sexual ethics, treating orientation as morally neutral. This is the closest convergence between a religion and the non-religious position anywhere on this specification, and Buddhist responses generally accept the criteria while adding that the state of mind in which one acts also matters.

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

Evaluation

The hinge: Whether sexual ethics needs rules or principles. Buddhism gives principles, which is why its conclusions look secular and its reasoning does not.

Defensible conclusions

• Buddhism's harm-based approach reaches conclusions close to secular ethics while grounding them in a claim about the mind, which is a real difference beneath an apparent agreement.
• It gives less practical guidance than a rule-based tradition, and for a fourteen-year-old that is a genuine disadvantage rather than a sophistication.
• The absence of a doctrinal position on same-sex relationships is the strongest evidence that Buddhist sexual ethics really is about harm rather than about acts.

Not defensible

• Claiming Buddhism has a list of forbidden sexual acts; the precept is stated in terms of misconduct and harm.
• Saying Buddhists must avoid love because attachment causes suffering, which confuses love with clinging.

Exam use

• Identify · 3 marks — Three Buddhist beliefs about relationships, or three of the Five Precepts.
• Outline · 4 marks — Two attitudes developed, each with its reason.
• Explain · 6 marks — Explain Buddhist attitudes to sexual relationships: the third precept, harm as the criterion, metta and karuna, and the warning against clinging.
• Evaluate · 12 marks — 'Sex is a private matter between consenting adults.' Buddhism largely agrees and adds a consideration about the mind, which is a subtle and rewarding structure.

Common mistakes

• Presenting the precepts as commandments with fixed penalties.
• Saying Buddhism forbids love, which confuses attachment with affection.
• Manufacturing a doctrinal Buddhist split on sexuality where the variation is mostly cultural.

“Christians believe divorce is always wrong.” — That is the Catholic position. Orthodox Christianity permits divorce in limited circumstances, and most Protestant churches permit divorce and remarriage.

Write instead: Name the tradition. 'Catholic teaching holds marriage indissoluble, so the Church annuls rather than divorces' is accurate and scores; 'Christians believe' on a divided question is not. Do not over-correct. Many claims genuinely ARE shared — the Trinity, the resurrection, the authority of the Bible — and hedging those makes an answer weaker, not more careful. (Named in the 2025 examiner report for Paper 1.)

“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

Metta meditation trains goodwill in a fixed order: oneself, then a benefactor, then a neutral stranger, then a difficult person, then all beings. A Level 4 answer notices the neutral stranger in the middle. That is the hard step — not the enemy, who at least provokes something, but the person one has no feelings about at all. Buddhism's account of relationships treats indifference rather than hostility as the real obstacle to goodwill, and the practice is designed around that diagnosis.

Carry on through Buddhism

• Previous unit: 2.3 · Sanctity of life, abortion and euthanasia
• Next unit: 2.5 · Marriage and partnership
• Human relationships in the other religions: Christianity · Hinduism · Islam · Judaism · Sikhism
• All of Buddhism · Incandio Religious Studies · The 4RS1 specification