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Vajra Hell

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 6:36 am
by retrofuturist
Greetings,

As I understand it, in Vajrayana Buddhism there is the potential for finding oneself in Vajra Hell.
Tantric Buddhists are in the position of a snake inside a bamboo tube; one hole faces up to the Dharmakaya, the other down toward Vajra Hell. There are only two options -- up or down; no in-between. Keeping samaya (commitment) determines which way the snake slides.
Source: http://www.khandro.net/TibBud%20_vajrayana.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A few questions...

1. Is Vajra Hell a place or a state of mind?

2. Does it correlate to any of the planes of existence (e.g. Avici Hell) taught in Mahayana or Theravada Buddhism?

3. Is Vajra Hell a "scare tactic" to encourage practitioners to maintain samaya, or the geniune kammic consequence of breaking samaya?

Metta,
Retro. :)

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 7:38 am
by ronnewmexico
I will since there are no replies totally conjecture a answer, and this from a uneducated layperson without a shred of knowledge.

In Tibetan Buddhism(as per Gampopa), I have heard of 18 various hell areas with varying characteristics. However I have not heard of vajra hell so listed in the eighteen. But breakers of their vows or commitments are said to enter such a place.

But I have heard a hell realm exists which is not a real place but a movie of sorts that beings play to themselves of horribleness. So I conjecture this is that place which then is not real(as we consider real) but self invented. So they may be here and now or in some other realm but playing this movie to themselves these breakers of samaya.

So to my opinion, it is a state of mind and not in a ultimate sense.
So is it used to scare peoples....I'd say not. Breaking of samaya would produce as effect this state of mind, which as it is a spiritual thing and not a actual act of say killing your mother or father which would place you directly by effect in a real hell for all intents and purposes, this would place your spiritual state in such a place of mind.

Actual action and effect of such action would most probably ensue. But with only breaking of samaya it would be a spiritual fault and thusly in the begining at least a spiritual consequence of a sort.

But I have heard some refer to it as a very real place and the worst of hells.
I take it as spiritual consequence which produces a spiritual state of mind. From that state of mind will most likely ensue action which causes result of birth in one of the eighteen. LIke a person who has no vistage of morality or ethics to their makeup anymore due to consequence of drug addiction or some other factor may enter a hell of the mind but be in the human realm until the actions of compassion that resulted in a human birth unwind. That is how I take it. They are perhaps destined for a real hell realm but the action that is the specific cause, has not occured yet. So the internal movie they are playing is one of horribleness and speaks of things to come.

So that may be of no help whatsoever and those of education may certainly correct my understanding.
But no replies....so at least there is one though perhaps a worthless one. And what is ventured is solely a personal opinion. I am certain a Tibetan Buddhist text could qualify this thing. If I run accross one I will list the answer found there. Or others may.

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 8:55 am
by ground
retrofuturist wrote:1. Is Vajra Hell a place or a state of mind?
I like this question because it implies that there are "places" which are not "states of mind" ;)

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 9:29 am
by muni
State of mind. Hell beings are recognized by an attitude of aggression in different ways. They are pushing people, even friendly, away from them with this attitude.

Or they show unfeeling coldness. By that the expressions get two kinds of hell: hot and an icy.
In the pain of own afflictive state, they destroy own being.

Of course, the karmic trace.


:heart:

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 9:40 am
by catmoon
retrofuturist wrote: 1. Is Vajra Hell a place or a state of mind?

Metta,
Retro. :)
I don't know. Let me ask a this, though: Is the place where you are now, a place or a state of mind?

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 12:31 pm
by Anders
AFAIK Vajra hell is a special feature of Vajrayana - only practitioners who break samaya in ways gruelling enough to go there can end up in the vajra hells, which is below even avici (although I believe there are some who say that it is more like an aspect of the avici hells).

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 4:39 am
by fragrant herbs
Can someone here explain this more fully. I don't feel that the original poster was answered? thanks. in other words do these hells exist here on this earth according to one's state of mind or not?

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 6:51 am
by plwk
Can someone here explain this more fully. I don't feel that the original poster was answered? thanks. in other words do these hells exist here on this earth according to one's state of mind or not?
See here... this and below should answer Retro
Image Page 16-17...
Certain texts and certain people maintain that there really are places like the hell realms and the god realm and that you physically go to these places. However, in the Bodhicharyavatara, Shantideva asks, 'The burning grounds of the hells, the guards of hell realm, who made them?" Nobody made them. These places come out of our own negative thoughts or negative emotions. These realms are not physical places that we can go to. They exist only in our mind and we can only find them through our mind. For instance, if we really hate something and if we die with this hatred and violence is still in our mind, it is said that we could be born into the hell realm. The hell realm could be in this place or that, at the same time, it could be anywhere or everywhere because it is in our own mind. The human realm is no more 'real' than the hell realm and the hell realm is no less 'real' than the human realm. All of them are of the same nature. They are as real as our experience of them and these experiences come mostly from our own mind with of course many different causes and effects but through our own karma.
Look at the Shurangama Sutra...
http://www.cttbusa.org/shurangama/shurangama30.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"Ananda, all beings in the world are caught up in the continuity of birth and death. Birth happens because of their habitual tendencies; death comes through flow and change. When they are on the verge of dying, but when the final warmth has not left their bodies, all the good and evil they have done in that life suddenly and simultaneously manifests. They experience the intermingling of two habits: an abhorrence of death and an attraction to life.

”When they have ninety percent emotion and ten percent thought, they fall through the wheel of fire until their bodies enter wind and fire, in a region where the two interact. With lighter emotion they are born in the intermittent hell; with heavier emotion they are born in the Unintermittent Hell.

”When they are possessed entirely of emotion, they sink into the Avichi Hell. If the emotion has gone into their hearts so that they slander the Great Vehicle, defame the Buddha’s pure precepts, speak crazy and false dharma, are greedy for offerings from the faithful, recklessly accept the respect of others, commit the five rebellious acts and the ten major offenses, then they are further reborn in Avichi Hells throughout the ten directions.

”Ananda, it all comes from the karmic responses which living beings themselves invoke.
3. Is Vajra Hell a "scare tactic" to encourage practitioners to maintain samaya, or the geniune kammic consequence of breaking samaya?
Once, I asked a Muslim friend of mine what if there was no Allah and the Prophet Muhammad and all the threats of not keeping the commitments of a Muslim, would he still do good. His reply was 'For what????' You get the idea....

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 7:31 am
by LastLegend
^Another way to understand hell is look at our emotions. For example when we experience intense anger, our brain is burning with pain and uncomfortable sensations. So hell is what we experience due to delusion or attachment of self. And this self experiences what it creates. An Arhat has got rid of attachment of self.

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 10:36 am
by seraphim
I just try my best to avoid it, figure that I will never know what it is exactly.

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 11:53 am
by Malcolm
Vajra hell is Avici hell.

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 2:23 pm
by gnegirl
If you break samaya, you break your own heart. That is a hell imo.

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 3:01 pm
by Grigoris
gnegirl wrote:If you break samaya, you break your own heart. That is a hell imo.
And your gurus heart, that's what makes it worse.
:namaste:

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 3:09 pm
by gnegirl
gregkavarnos wrote:
gnegirl wrote:If you break samaya, you break your own heart. That is a hell imo.
And your gurus heart, that's what makes it worse.
:namaste:
Where are they separate :)?

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 3:13 pm
by Grigoris
gnegirl wrote:
gregkavarnos wrote:
gnegirl wrote:If you break samaya, you break your own heart. That is a hell imo.
And your gurus heart, that's what makes it worse.
:namaste:
Where are they separate :)?
:twothumbsup: Good question!

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 10:29 pm
by fragrant herbs
what is samaya?

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 10:38 pm
by Dechen Norbu
Samaya (Skt.; Tib. དམ་ཚིག་, damtsik; Wyl. dam tshig) — the vajrayana commitments taken when receiving empowerment. In the Dzogchen tradition there are twenty-seven root samayas of the body, speech and mind and twenty-five branch samayas.

from:
http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Samaya" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 12:47 am
by fragrant herbs
thank you. i have no idea what empowerment is, but that is okay.

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 8:51 am
by Grigoris
Empowerment (Skt. abhiṣeka; Tib. དབང་, wang; Wyl. dbang) is the initiation that transmits or awakens primordial wisdom (Tib. ཡེ་ཤེས་, yeshe), the power or realization in the mind of the disciple.

from:
http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Empowerment" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

From now on Urgyen Chodron will go to this site http://www.rigpawiki.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and search for terms before asking us! :smile:
:namaste:

Re: Vajra Hell

Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 2:10 pm
by gnegirl
We need a sticky thread of important sites, like the RigpaWiki site.
and

D'oh! We have one! :oops: