The multi-ethnic society and racial harmony — Buddhism

What the specification asks for

Paper 1, Section 4, 4.3 (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

Most objections to racism say it is cruel, or unfair, or a failure to see what somebody is worth. Buddhism leads with a different one: it says racism is mistaken about the facts. There is no permanent thing that a member of one group essentially is, so there is nothing there to rank. Whether that makes the objection stronger or simply less useful is what this unit is actually about.

What it means

The doctrine doing the work is the one about no fixed self — anatta. It holds that a person is a changing process rather than a fixed essence, with no permanent core inside them. Applied here it is unusually direct: racial thinking requires that the members of a group share some persistent something which makes them what they are, and this tradition denies that anybody has any such thing.

Beside it sits a historical fact. The Buddha rejected caste as a basis for religious standing and admitted people of every background to the community, in a society where birth settled everything. The refusal was practical rather than only theoretical.

Metta — loving kindness — is trained towards all beings without preference, and the word to hold onto is trained. This is a practice with a sequence rather than a feeling somebody waits to have, which makes impartiality something a person can work at instead of something they either possess or do not.

Rebirth adds a further step. Beings move between conditions across lives, so whichever group anybody belongs to now is a temporary circumstance rather than an identity, and it could have been another one.

Why believers hold it

Put those together and the shape of the objection is unusual. Most traditions say the racist has valued somebody wrongly. This one says the racist believes in something that is not there — the category being ranked has no persisting essence and no fixed membership, so the ranking is not so much unjust as empty.

That buys something real. You cannot rank categories that do not exist, so the argument does not depend on persuading anybody to extend their sympathy, which is exactly the step a committed racist refuses to take. It goes after the belief rather than the feeling, and the belief is the part that can be shown to be wrong.

And it costs something real, which a strong answer concedes rather than hides. People do not usually abandon a prejudice on being shown it rests on a mistake about metaphysics. Prejudice is rarely held as a considered theory in the first place. An argument that works by correcting a belief is aiming at the part of a racist that is least involved in the racism.

Where it comes from

• Buddhist teaching — The three marks of existence: anicca, anatta, dukkha (translated)

  Anicca — impermanence; anatta — no fixed self; dukkha — unsatisfactoriness.

  Everything changes; there is no permanent, unchanging self; and clinging to what changes produces dissatisfaction.

  What it is doing here: Is the argument rather than a supporting quotation — no fixed self means no fixed racial category for a hierarchy to be true of.

• 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: Makes impartiality a trained practice with a method, which is what stops the teaching being an aspiration nobody can act on.

• Buddhist teaching — Kamma and samsara; taught throughout the Pali Canon (translated)

  Kamma — intentional action and its results; samsara — the round of rebirth.

  Intentional actions condition future experience within the cycle of rebirth, which ends with nibbana.

  What it is doing here: Movement between conditions across lives makes present group membership a circumstance rather than an identity — a second and independent route to the same conclusion.

Where it bites

The specification asks for examples of racial harmony in Buddhist practice, and the strongest is Dr B. R. Ambedkar's movement in India: in 1956 he and hundreds of thousands of Dalits converted to Buddhism explicitly in order to leave a hierarchy of birth, and the movement has grown since. The community's historic admission of every caste is the ancient version of the same thing.

The record has another half. Buddhist nationalism has been implicated in serious persecution of minorities in Myanmar and in Sri Lanka. Naming it costs an answer nothing and concealing it costs credibility; Buddhist teachers including the Dalai Lama have condemned it publicly, which locates it as a failure to observe the teaching rather than an application of it.

What people get wrong

People think: A multi-ethnic society and a multi-faith society are the same thing.

Actually: They are two different specification points with two different sets of arguments, examined separately. This one is about ethnicity and the next is about religion, and drifting into interfaith work here is the commonest way to lose marks on this unit.

People think: Buddhist countries have no history of ethnic persecution.

Actually: They do, and it is recent and documented. The defensible position is that it contradicts the teaching rather than expressing it — but the events happened, and an answer that leaves them out reads as a defence rather than as an argument.

People think: Buddhism opposes racism because everybody has equal worth.

Actually: That is the argument the other traditions make and it is not this one. Equal worth is a claim about what people are; this tradition's move is that there is no fixed what-they-are for the racist's category to be true of, and flattening it loses the distinctive step.

What the examiner expects you to understand

• Use the doctrine by name and show what it does; an answer about kindness and tolerance with no Buddhist content is capped as generic however well written.
• Give an example, because the specification asks for examples of racial harmony in Buddhist practice and Ambedkar's movement is the strongest available.
• Report the record of Buddhist nationalism honestly — examiners reward that and penalise the answer that reads as a defence of the tradition.
• Do not drift into interfaith relations; that is the next point, and the confusion is recorded often enough to guard against deliberately.
• The evaluative judgement worth arguing is whether racism is better attacked as a moral fault or as a factual error, and this is the only tradition here that leads with the second.

2 · Grade 9 Notes

Core belief / issue

Buddhism's argument against racism is doctrinal rather than scriptural in the usual sense: anatta denies that anyone has a fixed identity, so there is no essential racial category for a hierarchy to attach to; metta is trained without preference; and the Buddha rejected caste in a society organised entirely by birth. The specification also asks for examples of racial harmony in practice — and honesty requires acknowledging Buddhist nationalism as well.

Key terminology

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

Anatta

No-self; the doctrine denying any fixed identity, and therefore any essential racial category.

Metta (also maitri)

Loving kindness, trained towards all beings without preference or exception.

Caste (also varna, jati)

The Indian hierarchy of birth, which the Buddha rejected as a basis for religious standing.

Sangha

The community, which admitted people of every caste and background from the start.

Prejudice

Judging someone before knowing them, on the basis of a group they belong to.

What Buddhism teaches

• shared — Anatta denies that anyone has a fixed essential identity, which removes the ground on which racial hierarchy stands.
• shared — The Buddha rejected caste as a basis for spiritual standing and admitted people of every background to the sangha.
• shared — Metta is trained towards all beings without preference, which makes impartiality a practice rather than an aspiration.
• shared — All beings are in the same cycle of rebirth and could have been born in any group, which makes group identity contingent rather than essential.

Why it teaches this

The reasoning is that racism requires an essential category — a permanent something that members of a group are. Anatta denies that anyone has such a thing, and rebirth across groups makes any current membership a temporary condition rather than an identity. So the Buddhist objection to racism is not that it is unkind but that it is factually mistaken, which is a distinctive and unusually strong form of the argument.

Sources of authority

• Buddhist teaching — The three marks of existence: anicca, anatta, dukkha (translated)

  Anicca — impermanence; anatta — no fixed self; dukkha — unsatisfactoriness.

  Everything changes; there is no permanent, unchanging self; and clinging to what changes produces dissatisfaction.

  How to use it: Anatta is what makes Buddhism's answer on the soul genuinely different from every other religion on this specification, and it is the concept most often got wrong.

  What it does not settle: Anatta does NOT mean there is nothing at all, and rebirth without a permanent self is the hard part. A learner who writes 'Buddhists believe the soul is reborn' has contradicted anatta.

• The Pali Canon — Khuddaka Nikaya — Dhammapada, verse 1 (translated)

  Mind precedes all things; all things are made by mind.

  Mental states shape action and therefore experience. The opening of the most widely read Buddhist text.

  How to use it: It puts intention at the origin of everything ethical, which is why Buddhist practice works on the mind rather than on rules.

  What it does not settle: A single verse of a poetic collection; it states a principle rather than settling a case.

• 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 — Kamma and samsara; taught throughout the Pali Canon (translated)

  Kamma — intentional action and its results; samsara — the round of rebirth.

  Intentional actions condition future experience within the cycle of rebirth, which ends with nibbana.

  How to use it: In Buddhism kamma turns on INTENTION, which is why the same outward act can have different consequences — a distinction Hindu karma does not stress in the same way.

  What it does not settle: Kamma is not fate and not divine reward. And nibbana is NOT moksha — the reports record that confusion.

Different interpretations

• The Buddha's rejection of caste read as a social reform and read as a claim about spiritual standing only; the sangha's admission practice supports the first more strongly than critics allow.
• Metta read as feeling and read as trained impartiality; the second is what makes it usable as an anti-prejudice practice.
• Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar and Sri Lanka read as a betrayal of the teaching and read as evidence that religions become vehicles for ethnic identity regardless of doctrine; both readings are argued and the second is more explanatory.

Differences within Buddhism

There is no Buddhist disagreement about the teaching against prejudice. The honest complication is practice: Buddhist nationalism has been implicated in serious persecution, and Buddhist teachers have condemned it publicly.

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

Application to the issue

It shows in the sangha's historic admission of people of every caste; in Dr B. R. Ambedkar's mass conversion movement in India, in which hundreds of thousands of Dalits became Buddhists explicitly to escape caste; in Western Buddhist communities' diversity; and — reported honestly — in the record of Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

Arguments supporting

• Anatta makes racism a factual error rather than only a moral fault. — If nobody has a fixed identity, there is nothing for a racial category to be true of. (buddhism)
  Answered by: People are perfectly capable of holding a factually mistaken view firmly, so showing the error does not remove the attitude.
• Ambedkar's movement is evidence that Buddhism can function as an escape from hierarchy. — Hundreds of thousands converted specifically to leave caste behind. (shared)
  Answered by: It also shows that the surrounding society's hierarchy followed converts, which limits what a change of religion can achieve.

Arguments challenging

• Buddhist nationalism contradicts the teaching. — Buddhist majorities in Myanmar and Sri Lanka have been implicated in persecution of minorities. (non-religious)
  Answered by: It is a failure to observe the teaching rather than an application of it, and Buddhist teachers including the Dalai Lama have condemned it — but the failure is real and should be stated.
• Racial harmony needs law rather than doctrine. — Equality legislation has achieved more than teaching. (non-religious)
  Answered by: True, and the Buddhist claim is about the attitudes law cannot reach rather than about being an alternative to it.

Secular / non-religious perspective

Humanists hold racism to be irrational and cruel, treating a morally irrelevant characteristic as decisive, and locate remedies in law, education and integration. They would find the Buddhist argument from anatta philosophically interesting and would insist that institutions rather than insight are what actually protect minorities.

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

Evaluation

The hinge: Whether racism is best attacked as a moral fault or as a factual error. Buddhism is the only tradition on this specification that leads with the second.

Defensible conclusions

• The argument from anatta is the most radical anti-racist reasoning available here, because it denies the existence of the categories rather than the legitimacy of ranking them.
• Buddhist nationalism is a real and serious counter-example, and an answer that conceals it is weaker rather than kinder.
• Ambedkar's movement is the strongest positive example, because it shows Buddhism being chosen specifically as an exit from a hierarchy of birth.

Not defensible

• Confusing a multi-ethnic society with a multi-faith one; the examiners name this error.
• Claiming Buddhist communities have never been implicated in ethnic persecution.

Exam use

• Identify · 3 marks — Three Buddhist teachings that oppose racism, or three examples of racial harmony in Buddhist practice.
• Outline · 4 marks — Two developed. 'Buddhists hold anatta (1) — there is no fixed self, so there is no essential racial identity for a hierarchy to attach to (1).'
• Explain · 6 marks — Explain how Buddhist teaching promotes racial harmony: anatta, the rejection of caste, metta, and rebirth across groups.
• Evaluate · 12 marks — 'Religion is the best way to bring different races together.' Buddhism gives the sharpest argument and the most awkward recent record.

Common mistakes

• Writing about interfaith relations when the question is about ethnicity.
• Naming no example, when the specification asks for examples of racial harmony in Buddhist practice.
• Concealing the record of Buddhist nationalism, which weakens rather than protects the answer.

“A multi-faith society and a multi-ethnic society are the same thing.” — One is about religion, the other about ethnicity. They are two different specification points with two different sets of arguments, and the papers examine them separately.

Write instead: A multi-ethnic society contains people of different ethnic backgrounds (4.3, racial harmony, prejudice, discrimination). A multi-faith society contains people of different religions and none (4.4, proselytisation, exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism). They overlap in practice and prejudice can run along both lines at once — but the terminology the question uses tells you which one is being marked. (Named in the 2022 examiner report for Paper 1.)

Grade 9 insight

Buddhism's objection to racism is not primarily that it is cruel but that it is FALSE — anatta says there is no fixed self, so the essential racial identity a racist believes in does not exist to be ranked. A Level 4 answer notices what that costs and what it buys. It is a stronger argument than an appeal to equal worth, because you cannot rank categories that are not there; and it is a weaker motivator, because people rarely abandon a prejudice on being shown it rests on a metaphysical mistake.

Carry on through Buddhism

• Previous unit: 4.2 · Equal rights and equal opportunities
• Next unit: 4.4 · The multi-faith society and interfaith relationships
• The multi-ethnic society and racial harmony in the other religions: Christianity · Hinduism · Islam · Judaism · Sikhism
• All of Buddhism · Incandio Religious Studies · The 4RS1 specification