Hell impermanent

shanyin

I have heard that in Buddhism that hell is impermanent. Of course in Christianity and possibly other faiths hell is eternal. I have heard in Buddhism that once one's karma is used up or w/e; they find a new birth. Is this true? Are there suttras to back that up?

TheFound

lol I'm a Buddist, and I don't even know much about the suttas,
what's important is...well the suttas are important..
but

before asking us this,
what do you observe in nature?...what eternal hell have you ever seen?
all i've seen are impermanent hells.
I've seen people sick, tortured, murdered, but their hells never lasted more than some years at most.

that's the mercy/curse of impermanence, you can live your whole life with a rare disease, pain etc, etc
but you will for sure die.

after you die, how would it ever make sense you'd be stuck in an ETERNAL place..lol,

where were you 100 years ago? stuck in eternity? no....of course not, because you are here now... think of the pattern you already have 2 pieces of ...
you are here now,
(that means you weren't in hell or heaven forever or else you'd still be there)
which indicates a strong probability that when you die.... you will... :cool:

Inji-gyo

TheFound has a very good point. Are there suttras contrary to this?

aaki

Yes, it's standard for hell to be temporary. Same with higher births. Same with us. Gross and subtle impermanence are cornerstones of buddhism.

We say that all functioning things are a dependent arising, meaning there are no such things as unchanging creators or unchanging enduring essences to things.

Elliott

Its important to know that the Hell spoken of in the texts is a symbol, not a particularly eternal scary, fiery place to torture "evil souls" Being reborn as a caged animal could be called Hell, but karma purification is still possible to be reborn as something more pleasant (Heaven?).

This is why I see Buddhism as more of a philosophy then a religion.

But like what the other guys said nothing is eternal except nirvana, even scientifically speaking the dalai lama states that everything down to space particles can be traced back, therefore everything has a former existance and is inter related to everything.

Btw this is my first post so i hope it helps lol!

NamelessRiver

Btw this is my first post so i hope it helps lol!

Welcome to the forum Elliott. Hope to see you contributing a lot here :^)

Are there suttras to back that up?

I don't know if there are suttas stating that hell is specifically impermanent, but impermanence itself is a characteristic of all births, so they have to end one day. There are even places in the abiddhama that talk about the lifespan of beings from another realms.

As far as buddhist thought goes, you will encounter many points of controversy, this being one of them. many people will tell you its just symbolism, but there are many interpretations to the suttas.

NamelessRiver

I would like to complement my previous post with a thought on multiple interpretation of the suttas:

We first find the tale of Cassandra and her legendary gifts in other works of ancient Greek literature. According to one version of the story, Cassandra received the power to foretell the future from the god Apollo. Apparently, Apollo instructed the mortal woman and taught her about the art of prophecy because he had an ulterior motive - the god wished to win her affections. Cassandra accepted Apollo as a teacher, but not as a lover. Naturally, the god was insulted by this refusal. So he punished Cassandra. Apollo caused the gift that he gave Cassandra to be twisted, making everyone who heard her true and accurate foretellings of future events believe that they were instead hearing lies. In other words, the wondrous blessing bestowed upon a mortal became instead a terrible curse.
And indeed, the burden of Cassandra's "gift" is evident in mythology. She predicted the outcome of many disastrous events. In one memorable example, Cassandra announced the dire consequences of the Trojans accepting the infamous Wooden Horse from their Greek opponents. But as Apollo made certain, no one believed Cassandra when she warned her companions about the future. And this, in the end, was to be Cassandra's tragic fate.

Cassandra knew, through the gift of prophecy, what nobody could have possibly known. Her knowledge was in vain, though. She could not save Troy, or herself from her own foreseen death.

There are many questions to be answered, but such as Cassandra, even if we had the answers to those questions, we would be faced with our own powerlessness over the answers. Such is the human condition. The knowledge, wasted, actually, made her suffer, condemned to see the ruin of everything around her and not being able to do anything.

There were certain questions the Buddha refused to answer, because he said they wouldn't lead to salvation. In the Dharma, what matters is whether or not the things we believe in lead us to enlightenment or not, not the absolute truth about each single point of doctrine.

You will see many people arguing about things like Hells, Rebirth, Karma, and so on, but as long as this knowledge is being used to fuel arguments, they are achieving the exact opposite of what the are meant to achieve, and, even if we knew all about the hells, what good could come of it?

TheFound

lol maybe Apollo wasn't a jerk , maybe since she didn't want to be with him he had to make sure she'd be okay without his supervision you know what i mean... maybe the gift was only okay to have properly if you are with a god..

uzeb

Hell is a literal realm, one of the six that exist. We can be reborn there. We've all been there many times before. But it is not permanent. Granted, we can experience hell-like conditions here in the human realm, but it's nothing like the suffering of those who are actually in hell. Anger and hatred are what lead to rebirths in this realm.

DhammaDhatu

shanyin wrote: »

I have heard that in Buddhism that hell is impermanent. Of course in Christianity and possibly other faiths hell is eternal. I have heard in Buddhism that once one's karma is used up or w/e; they find a new birth. Is this true? Are there suttras to back that up?

Yes. There are many suttas to back this up.

But our own experience can also back this up.

For example, we may have performed an action that lead to our mind having great suffering or great shame & remorse. This great suffering or great same & remorse is the same as hell.

Hey! It passes away also. It is indeed impermanent.

Everything we do in our lives is just a lesson towards enlightenment.