The Buddha’s Inner Transformation Spreads into Society
I now turn to social justice and Buddhist participation in society. The Buddha’s inner transformation is what we call awakening: realizing, “There is no such thing; it has no foundation; all is impermanent and without self.” That awakening stirred a vast social transformation.
This connection is dependent arising itself. An inner change spreads to family, friends, fellow practitioners, and everyone we meet. The Buddha’s forty-five years after awakening affected ancient India, and those currents moved through Persia, Greece, and Western societies. This is not a miracle but the operation of an interdependent world.
Body and mind affect each other; when I stand upright, my family and neighbors are affected. No independent, isolated self exists. Inner and social transformation are therefore inseparable in Buddhism. The Buddha’s revolutionary “there is no such thing” returns to Korea today under names such as equality, democracy, philosophy, and science.
Why Buddhism Is Growing Again in India
Buddhism is often said to have disappeared from India. Its population was only 0.1 percent under British rule, but the 2011 figure was about 0.7 percent—roughly eight million people in India’s enormous population. Buddhism is growing anew.
The reason becomes visible in the caste order that persists. The four varṇas are Brahmin priests, Kshatriya rulers and warriors, Vaishya commoners, and Shudra laborers. Outside them stand Dalits, once treated as untouchable. A Dalit student described being refused housing and temple entry, avoided by teachers, harassed by police, and denied village well water that dogs could drink. Birth is still used to call one human noble and another polluted.
Each year in Nagpur, people suffering such discrimination convert from Hinduism to Buddhism. They choose a tradition that rejects hereditary rank and says human beings are equal. “There is no such caste” becomes a language of actual liberation.
Ambedkar and the Urgency of Caste Abolition
Indian independence evokes Gandhi, but Bhimrao Ambedkar deserves equal attention. Born a Dalit, educated abroad, and trained in law, he made the abolition of caste his central task. He regarded caste oppression as even more urgent than independence, though he also cooperated with Gandhi during the independence struggle.
After independence in 1947, Ambedkar became the first law minister and a principal architect of the Constitution. Yet caste embedded in religious authority and custom did not disappear with law. Like the “idol of the theatre,” inherited tradition held people’s minds. He resigned and devoted himself to spreading Buddhism and pursuing equality.
In 1956, Ambedkar and hundreds of thousands converted to Buddhism at Nagpur. His twenty-two vows reject Hindu gods and incarnations, reject discrimination, commit to building equality, leave a religion that treats human beings unequally, and promise to act according to the Buddha’s teaching. That mass-conversion tradition continues today.
Do Not Ask Birth; Ask Conduct
In The Buddha and His Dhamma, Ambedkar cited scriptures to show why Buddhism supports equality. The saṅgha’s refusal to preserve birth rank was revolutionary. I see its root in the Buddha’s realization: “There was never such a thing.”
The Pali phrase mā jāti puccha expresses it clearly: “Do not ask birth.” In Indian society, jāti joins surname, family occupation, and varṇa to determine social worth. A name can reveal the work and rank assigned to one’s family.
In the Sundarika story of the Sutta Nipāta, a Brahmin finishes a fire sacrifice and considers giving the remaining offering to the Buddha, but first asks his birth. Jāti is the criterion for deciding whether the Buddha deserves the gift. The Buddha answers: “Do not ask birth.”
Do not ask birth; ask conduct. Fire can arise from any piece of wood.
Different wood still burns. Birth does not divide human potential. Anyone can awaken. This was both obvious and revolutionary. The Buddha therefore did not preserve hereditary class inside the saṅgha. Conversely, the dense ranks that divide Korean Buddhism today are not Buddhist; authoritarian, hierarchical thought must be discarded.
Inner Peace and Social Engagement Are Not Separate
Equality and freedom were not always given. Systems of rank arose through authority, tradition, and custom; some disappeared and others remain. If Buddhism seeks inner peace, why should it engage society? Because social peace shapes my peace, and inner clarity allows social wrongs to become visible. We affect one another.
One person’s awakening spreads outward. The Buddha’s inner transformation became a transformation of disciples and society and has worked for 2,500 years. The idea that no one is noble or base by birth is present in the equality we now possess. Buddhist social participation is therefore entirely natural.
After the transformation of seeing “there is no such thing,” we can see vulnerable people trapped by society’s claim that “there is such a rank.” When they break that mental prison through Buddhist thought and change society through action, that is Buddhist revolution. Refusing both to discriminate and to accept discrimination cannot end as a private resolution; it must become action against a social order built by birth and authority.
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