Is there a Buddhist Hell?

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Samsara: the continuous "wandering on" from birth to birth

Heaven (sagga, deva-lokas) and hell (niraya, avici) are both ideas found in Buddhism. Neither is eternal, and that's the good news. The bad news is that the lifespans in many worlds are incredibly long. But that's only one key difference. The ideas behind the many (spacious) Buddhist heavens and fewer (but more crowded) Buddhist hells are different from the concepts of heaven and hell in non-Buddhist traditions.

Samsara: the realm of the senses ruled by death

In terms of spiritual ecology, all of the destinations below the human realm are regarded as unfortunate, woeful states. By rebirth one falls into "perdition," inferior destinations. None of these states -- animal, ghost, denizen --are eternal. Instead, these planes of existence are more similar to the Catholic concept of "purgatory."

Avici: a very low and miserable world of torment for the purging of weighty karma

Buddhist worlds in general, including the Human Realm, are not places of "punishment" though it may seem that way when bad karma finds an opportunity to ripen. Instead, they are places for the appropriate working out of karma accumulated over an inconceivable chain of many lifetimes. Buddhist heavens (deva realms, Brahma worlds, immaterial planes) are not final resting places.

There are 31 planes of existence. Of these, the lowest five are considered "unfortunate" destinations. The human world (even though the lifespan here varies over times, increasing to over 80,000 years in cyclic phases through the evolution and devolution of beings experiencing the results of their skillful and unskillful actions. These planes are not uniform places. Just like the human world, there are many gradations, many levels, domains, conditions, almost as many experiences of a world as there are beings there to experience it. They are constantly changing.

All of these worlds combined are called Samsara, "the Wheel of Lfe and Death," an almost endless cycling through countless births, deaths, rebirths, and redeaths. Samsara literally means the "continued wandering on" of beings. None of these worlds are any kind of end to the wandering. Meritorious and demeritorious, skillful and unskillful, beneficial and detrimental actions, corresponding as they do to different realms where their results may be experienced, are always trying to find expression, to sprout and give fruit like seeds planted long ago.

Because of this aimless wandering -- accompanied by desire for the pleasant, aversion to the unpleasant, and delusion about what is going on and why -- Buddhist texts do not speak very highly of heavenly worlds. Consider a passage from the Dhammapada ("Footprint of the Dharma") the best known Buddhist scripture:

"Better than going to heaven, better than lordship over all worlds, is the reward of the first step of enlightenment."

The Buddha taught that heavenly and hellish worlds exist not only beyond this world but also within it, within beings. Here and now, beings "burn" with greed/lust, anger/fear, delusion/ignorance. Beings endure emotional as well as physical pain. No matter what plane of existence or state of consciousness, Buddhist hells are places where there is more unpleasant than pleasant sensation. Buddhist heavens are places where there is more bliss than suffering. In either, living beings who experience experiencing an extremely rare and "precious human birth" can learn and progress toward enlightenment faster than beings in other realms.

Beyond death, Buddhist teaching holds that there is an incredible spectrum of possibility. It is inevitable that no new state of conditioned existence can become eternal. Hells are terrible, and there are some horrific representations of the lower more gruesome ones. Heavens may be pleasant, sublime, and filled with ecstasy, but they're transient. Final peace lies beyond Samsara and clinging to attachments to the pleasant. Liberation from the cycle of rebirth is nirvana, the unconditioned.