Relationships between rich and poor — Buddhism

What the specification asks for

Paper 1, Section 4, 4.5 (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

Two neighbours each give a hundred pounds to the same food bank. One gives because it is owed and would have been taken from him anyway; the other because he decided to. The money is identical. Buddhism holds that something else is not, and builds its whole teaching about wealth around the difference — which is also why it has no religious tax of the kind Islam and Judaism have.

What it means

Dana means generosity, and it is the first of the perfections — before ethics, patience, energy, meditation and wisdom. It is the primary practice of lay Buddhists, and it is voluntary. There is no Buddhist equivalent of zakat or tzedakah, and inventing one is a recorded error.

The specification names metta and karuna as the particular reference here. Metta is the wish that beings be happy; karuna is the wish that they be free from suffering. Poverty produces suffering, so the second bears on it directly and without any further argument being needed.

Greed — lobha — is one of the three poisons, alongside hatred and delusion. That puts accumulation in an unexpected category: it is a problem for the person doing the accumulating, and not only an injustice to the people who go without.

Right livelihood, one of the factors of the path, governs how wealth is made rather than only what is done with it afterwards, and excludes trades in weapons, in living beings, in intoxicants, in poison and in meat. Wealth itself is condemned nowhere here. Attachment to it is, which is why lay Buddhists are not required to be poor.

Why believers hold it

The reasoning has two sides pulling the same way. Poverty causes suffering and compassion requires that suffering be relieved: that is the ordinary half, and every tradition on this course has it. The other half is about the giver. Clinging is what the entire path is trying to loosen, and handing something over is the most immediately available way of loosening it — which is why generosity comes first rather than somewhere in the middle of the list.

Now the consequence, and it is what the unit is for. If giving is partly a practice performed on the giver, then an obligation extracted from somebody does only half the work. The poor receive the money either way; the payer has not practised anything. So dana is voluntary by design rather than by omission, and the absence of a Buddhist tithe is a position rather than a gap in the tradition.

The objection is obvious and should be conceded properly rather than argued around. A hungry person needs the food whether or not the donor was improved by giving it, and an obligation delivers more reliably than a disposition does. Buddhism's reply is evidential rather than theoretical: voluntary Buddhist giving has in fact sustained temples, schools, clinics and disaster relief at very large scale. That is an answer, and it is not a complete one.

Where it comes from

• 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: Puts greed beside hatred and delusion, which is what makes accumulation a spiritual problem for the accumulator rather than only an economic one.

• 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: Names one of the two wishes the specification points at, and it is unrestricted, so it does not stop at one's own community.

• 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 livelihood brings how the money was earned into a unit that would otherwise only be about what is done with it.

Where it bites

In Theravada countries lay people give alms to monks daily, and the merit-making built on that funds temples, schools and clinics. Tzu Chi, founded in Taiwan, is among the largest charitable organisations in the world and runs hospitals and international disaster relief. Sarvodaya Shramadana has organised village development across Sri Lanka on explicitly Buddhist lines. Right livelihood shows up in individual decisions too — a Buddhist turning down work at an arms company is applying this unit.

The criticism that much dana goes to monasteries rather than to the poor is fair as far as it goes, and less clean than it looks. In Buddhist societies the monasteries have been the schools, the clinics and the disaster response, so the money did not stop where the ledger says it did.

What people get wrong

People think: Buddhists have to give a fixed share of their income.

Actually: There is no Buddhist tithe. Dana is voluntary, and the voluntariness is doing work rather than sitting there as a loophole — a payment extracted from somebody cannot train them in anything.

People think: Buddhism says wealth is wrong.

Actually: It says attachment is. A wealthy lay Buddhist who holds their money lightly and gives from it is doing nothing the tradition condemns, and lay people have never been required to be poor.

People think: Dana and zakat are the same idea in two religions.

Actually: They point in different directions. Zakat is justice owed to the poor and calculated as such; dana is the first exercise in loosening self-interest, and its value is not measured only by what arrives. That disagreement about what generosity is FOR is the best comparison available on the unit.

What the examiner expects you to understand

• Use the words the specification names — metta and karuna — and say what each of them is, because the wording points straight at them.
• Name an organisation or a practice; an answer with no example has not done what the question asked, however good the doctrine in it is.
• The four-mark answer wants development, so pair dana with the reason it is voluntary rather than listing two kinds of giving side by side.
• For the evaluation, the live question is whether generosity should be obligatory or voluntary, and this is the clearest case for one side of it on the course.
• Do not write that Buddhism condemns wealth; attachment rather than possession is the target, and the distinction is easy marks.

2 · Grade 9 Notes

Core belief / issue

The specification names metta and karuna as the particular reference. Buddhism has no obligatory tithe: dana, generosity, is voluntary and is valued as much for what it does to the giver as for what it does for the recipient. That is the distinctive Buddhist claim in this unit — generosity is the first of the perfections because it trains non-attachment, so giving is practice rather than only relief.

Key terminology

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

Dana (also dāna)

Generosity or giving; the first of the perfections and the primary lay practice.

Metta (also maitri)

Loving kindness; the wish that beings be happy.

Karuna

Compassion; the wish that beings be free from suffering.

Right livelihood

The path factor excluding work that harms, which addresses how wealth is made as well as what is done with it.

Lobha

Greed; one of the three poisons, and the reason accumulation is treated as a spiritual problem.

What Buddhism teaches

• shared — Generosity is the first perfection and the primary lay practice, and it is voluntary rather than obligatory.
• shared — Greed is one of the three poisons, so accumulation is a spiritual problem for the accumulator and not only an injustice to others.
• shared — Right livelihood governs how wealth is acquired: trades in weapons, living beings, intoxicants, poison and meat are excluded.
• shared — Compassion requires responding to suffering wherever it is found, which extends generosity beyond one's own community.

Why it teaches this

The reasoning is double-sided. Poverty causes suffering, so compassion requires relieving it; and clinging to wealth causes suffering in the person clinging, so giving benefits the giver. That is why dana is a practice rather than a duty: an obligation extracted would relieve the poor without doing the other half of the work. It also explains why Buddhism has no equivalent of zakat or tzedakah.

Sources of authority

• 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.

• 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.

• 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 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.

Different interpretations

• Dana read as giving to the monastic sangha specifically and read as giving generally; both are traditional, and the first has historically absorbed a great deal of lay generosity.
• Wealth read as an obstacle and read as morally neutral depending on attachment; the tradition holds the second, which is why lay Buddhists are not required to be poor.
• Voluntary giving read as spiritually superior to an obligation and read as less reliable; both claims are true and they pull against each other, which is the unit's central tension.

Differences within Buddhism

All traditions hold dana as the first perfection and greed as a poison. Engaged Buddhism gives more attention to structural poverty than traditional teaching did, which is development rather than disagreement.

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

Application to the issue

It shows in daily alms-giving to monks in Theravada countries; in the merit-making that funds temples, schools and clinics; in Buddhist relief organisations such as Tzu Chi, one of the largest charitable organisations in the world; in Sarvodaya Shramadana's village development work in Sri Lanka; and in right livelihood shaping career decisions.

Arguments supporting

• Voluntary giving does more for the giver than an obligation would. — Dana trains non-attachment, and a payment extracted trains nothing. (buddhism)
  Answered by: The poor need the money whether or not the giver is improved by parting with it, and an obligation delivers more reliably.
• Treating greed as a poison addresses the cause of inequality. — Accumulation is analysed as a mental state rather than only as an economic outcome. (shared)
  Answered by: Structural inequality persists whatever individual accumulators feel, so a psychological analysis is incomplete.

Arguments challenging

• Voluntary generosity is unreliable compared with an obligation. — Zakat and tzedakah are owed; dana is not. (islam)
  Answered by: Buddhist societies have nonetheless sustained substantial giving, and Tzu Chi's scale is evidence that voluntary systems can reach very large sums.
• Much dana goes to monasteries rather than to the poor. — Merit-making has historically funded temples on a large scale. (non-religious)
  Answered by: Monasteries have also been the main providers of education, medicine and disaster relief in Buddhist societies, so the distinction is less clean than it looks.

Secular / non-religious perspective

Humanists support helping the poor on grounds of shared humanity and reduced suffering, and generally prefer progressive taxation and universal welfare because they are reliable and accountable. They would agree with Buddhism that generosity benefits the giver psychologically while denying that this is a reason to prefer voluntary systems.

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

Evaluation

The hinge: Whether generosity should be obligatory or voluntary. Buddhism is the clearest case for voluntary on this specification, and Islam and Judaism the clearest cases against.

Defensible conclusions

• Buddhism's account of giving as practice rather than duty is philosophically interesting and practically less reliable, and both halves of that are true.
• The analysis of greed as a poison reaches the accumulator in a way a redistribution rule does not, which is a real addition rather than a substitute.
• Comparing dana with zakat is the strongest synoptic move available here, because the two traditions disagree about what generosity is FOR.

Not defensible

• Saying Buddhists are required to give a fixed proportion; there is no Buddhist equivalent of zakat.
• Claiming Buddhism regards wealth as inherently wrong; attachment rather than possession is the problem.

Exam use

• Identify · 3 marks — Three ways Buddhists help the poor, or three Buddhist teachings about wealth.
• Outline · 4 marks — Two developed. 'Buddhists practise dana (1) — voluntary generosity, valued because it trains non-attachment in the giver as well as relieving the receiver (1).'
• Explain · 6 marks — Explain why helping the poor matters to Buddhists: compassion, dana as the first perfection, greed as a poison, and right livelihood.
• Evaluate · 12 marks — 'Religious people should give away their wealth.' Buddhism's answer is about attachment rather than amount, which is a subtler position.

Common mistakes

• Attributing an obligatory Buddhist tithe; dana is voluntary.
• Saying Buddhism condemns wealth, when it condemns attachment to it.
• Naming no organisation or practice, when the specification asks for examples.

“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.)

Grade 9 insight

Dana is the FIRST of the perfections, before ethics, patience, energy, meditation and wisdom — the beginning of the path rather than an expression of it. A Level 4 answer asks why generosity would come first, and the answer is that it is the most immediately available way of loosening the grip of self-interest, which everything after it depends on. That is a very different account of charity from zakat's: Islam makes it justice owed to the poor, and Buddhism makes it the first exercise in becoming the kind of person who can walk the path at all.

Carry on through Buddhism

• Previous unit: 4.4 · The multi-faith society and interfaith relationships
• Next unit: 1.1 · The Buddha: his life and his importance
• Relationships between rich and poor in the other religions: Christianity · Hinduism · Islam · Judaism · Sikhism
• Side by side: Relationships between rich and poor across the six religions — What do believers owe the poor?
• All of Buddhism · Incandio Religious Studies · The 4RS1 specification