Heaven and Hell

by Ven. Thubten Gyatso

One of the most difficult concepts to accept in the Buddhist world view is the existence of realms of birth other than those we can directly see. Buddha taught that we all live within a beginningless cycle of rebirth as gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and hell beings. Suffering, caused by ignorance, pervades these realms and will only cease when we generate the wisdom seeing reality and attain nirvana. After that, we will have freedom to appear anywhere within the wheel of life to help others, without ever again being affected by the products of ignorance - selfishness, anger, and attachment.

When I first heard the Lamas talking about hungry ghosts, hell beings, and divine beings, I was unable to accept their literal reality. Captured, as I was, by the simple and accurate presentation of psychology within the Buddha's teachings, I assumed the vivid descriptions of other realms to be a metaphor for the spectrum of human mental experience. This assumption was reinforced when I heard a description of a hell where one is attacked by giant birds with iron beaks. This reminded me of a schizophrenic patient of mine who was tormented by hallucinations of giant birds with iron beaks who pursued him, accusing him of sexual misdemeanors and trying to kill him. I thought, yes, hell must be paranoid schizophrenia and hungry ghosts must be those whose miserliness and neuroses severely impair their enjoyment of life.

I could accept rebirth in the animal realm, even though I found it difficult to imagine my mind inhabiting an oyster (which I loved to eat). But, as an embryo, my body and mind were once more primitive than an oyster. And it seemed logical that if all minds are equal in having the fundamental potential for enlightenment, then the difference between my mind and that of a rabbit, for example, is not in the minds themselves, it is in the nervous systems which support the mind. If my mind was transplanted (can we say downloaded?) into a rabbit's brain, how could it express itself as anything other than a rabbit? And if the rabbit's mind inhabited a human nervous system, its potential for human intelligence would be able to manifest because of the much better hardware suddenly available.

Demigods are described as martial beings whose minds are dominated by the lust for power, and by jealousy of the gods who are closely related to them but have far superior pleasures. Yes, I thought, I know some humans whose minds are of the demigod ilk. The gods themselves have many levels, ranging from those indulging in exquisite sensory pleasure to those whose desire is purely for the mental bliss of meditation. Perhaps, I thought, the psychedelic experience and orgasm, or the two combined, are examples of the god state?

That was how I saw it in the beginning. The Lamas, however, continued to assert that the other realms were actual rebirth states. For example, our world is full of hungry ghosts that we cannot normally see because our karma projects a human world whereas their karma projects the bleak and barren world of a hungry ghost. Contrary to our assumption, the world out there is not a concrete reality existing from its own side; the world that each individual experiences is related to their own mind. Physical properties such as solidity, liquidity, heat, and movement exist, but the way in which they appear is determined by the observing consciousness. Buddha said that a liquid seen as water by a human is seen as a filthy, undrinkable substance by a hungry ghost, and as ambrosia by a god. The one liquid has three potential ways of appearing, each of which can be activated by the specific karma of an observing mind. Physicists say that if they want to measure light as a wave it will behave as a wave; if they want to measure light as a particle it will behave as a particle. Is this a modern illustration of how the subjective mind determines what is observed?

When I became a monk, I started a medical clinic at Kopan Monastery on a beautiful ridge overlooking Kathmandu valley. An Australian woman came to see me with a story that all her life she had seen ghosts, and the Buddhist description of hungry ghosts attracted her because it confirmed her own experience. She was a graduate in psychology and a very down-to-earth woman who had stopped telling people about her experiences because of their sceptical reactions. She described a round, black, hairy ghost with huge eyes that appeared most evenings at the foot of a Bodhi tree in the monastery grounds.

A year later, a man from Argentina told me a similar story, and described the same ghost.

Another year later, a young man came to collect his girlfriend at the end of a meditation course. Not interested in Buddhism, he had gone trekking, and had never seen a ghost in his life. During the final evening meditation of the course, we heard screams of terror - our round, black friend had appeared in this man's tent. The appearance of this ghost was not common knowledge. I had told nobody about it. Three independent witnesses made me think that perhaps there is something out there after all.

Gyatso

This teaching is by the Venerable Thubten Gyatso (previously Dr Adrian Feldmann), an Australian monk and old friend now working in Mongolia. One of the senior students of Lama Yeshe, Lama Zopa Rinpoche (and also Geshe Roach) he is currently teaching at the FPMT centre in Ulaan Baatar. These teachings originally appeared in his local English language newspaper in Ulaan Baatar and arereproduced with his permission.

Thanks to Diane Olander (pelmo@got.net), these teachings first appeared on the Internet on the website (www.gepeling.org) of
The Jangchub Gepel Ling Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies,
6960 Highway 9, Felton, CA 95018, Tel: 01 (831) 335 1217
where you can find many more teachings and other interesting material.