What are the social classes of Buddhism?

Answer 1

Buddhism is an individually centered religion. Sans the exception of the Tibetan Lama system it is not a centralized faith. Buddhism resolves that the individual resolve and choose their beliefs and path without mandates or threats of divine violence in retribution as compared to Abrahamic faiths. The foundation of Buddhism as a branch of Hinduism shares this non-centralized structure.

Answer 2

Unlike many Christian churches, in which there is a hierarchy of responsibility and control, Buddhism has no overall structure or central church. There are different Buddhist traditions, called lineages, such as Tibetan Buddhism, or Theravada Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, etc, but each lineage might or might not have a Lineage Master (like the Dalai Lama, who is the Lineage Master for the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism). To explain this you need to understand how Buddhism is taught.

Buddhist masters are monks who have learned the teachings sufficiently and has the ability to speak authoritatively about the teachings. They have received permission to do this from their master. This permission is called being given transmission. The monk could then go to another area, open a monastery and then teach others. If one of his monks then learns the teachings sufficiently, the new master could give transmission to his student, and the cycle continues. Please note that learning the teachings of the Buddha is not memorization, these masters must completely understand and be able to explain the teachings in their own words.

So Buddhism has a very diffuse structure.

Answer 3

The question of structure in Buddhist religion seems to be about the organizations that pass on Buddhist teachings. There is no single organization, and no particular structure aside from that which the Buddha outlined in his rules for monks. When he lay dying the Buddha made it clear that he was not handing his robes to one successor, but that the community of monks had the information there in the rules of the order he'd passed on. The structure is loosely one of general consent and respect for elders' time in practice. It takes many forms in the modern world.

Answer 4

I don't think that Buddhists divide themselves into social classes however the quality of life one may enjoy is dictated by cause and effect.

Answer 5

Apparently there is no social structure

Answer 6

Opposition to Caste System