Q47. What is meant by the four woeful realms?
~ By Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu ~
The first of the woeful realms is hell. Hell (naraka) is anxiety (in Thai, literally, ‘a hot, agitated heart’). Whenever we experience anxiety as if our hearts are being burnt and scorched, we immediately are reborn as hell creatures. This is a spontaneous rebirth, occurring mentally, or emotionally. While biologically human, shaped and dressed as we are here, we fall into the niraya hell as soon as we plunge into the hot agitation of anxiety. Whether worry about fear of punishment, anxiety about possible loss of prestige or fame, anxiety of any sort – that is hell.
Rebirth in the realm of beasts is foolishness. We are born into this realm whenever we are inexcusably foolish about something we ought to know. Examples of such foolishness are being confused about whether Dhamma and Nibbāna are beneficial and desirable, not daring to have contact with or get close to Buddhism, and credulous in believing that showing interest in Dhamma or Buddhism would make us old-fashioned and odd. That is how children see it, and their parents, too. They hold each other back and keep themselves far away from Dhamma. Whatever the form of foolishness, it amounts to rebirth as a beast. As soon as confusion arises and overwhelms us, we become beasts. We become beasts by spontaneous rebirth, by mental rebirth. This is the second woeful realm.
The third woeful realm is the peta, ghosts that are chronically hungry because their desires continually outrun their satisfaction. This is a chronic mental hunger that people suffer from, rather than hunger for bodily food. For instance, one wants to get a thousand baht.* Then just before getting the thousand baht, one suddenly wants to get ten thousand baht. Just before getting the ten thousand baht, it jumps to a hundred thousand baht. No sooner is one in reach of the hundred thousand baht, one wants a million baht, then a hundred million. Chasing but never catching, running but never reaching, petas have all the symptoms of chronic hunger. Such people resemble hungry ghosts in having stomachs as big as mountains and mouths as small as needles’ eyes. The intake is never sufficient for the hunger, creating rebirth as peta constantly.
The direct opposite of peta are people who, on getting ten satang**, are content with getting just the ten satang, or on getting twenty satang are content with twenty. But don’t get the idea that being easily satisfied means they fall into decline and stop looking for what’s needed. Intelligence tells us what has to be done, and we go about doing it the right way. In this way, we are filled to satisfaction every time we undertake something. We enjoy the seeking and then are satisfied. This is how to live without being peta, that is, without being chronically hungry. Pursuing things with craving constitutes being peta. Undertaking things intelligently isn’t craving and can’t be peta; in such cases, we are simply doing our duties.
A wise wish such as the wish to quench suffering isn’t craving. Don’t go telling people the wrong thing, spreading the word that all wants are craving or greed. To be craving or greed it must be a desire stemming from foolishness. The wish to attain Nibbāna is a craving, if pursued with foolishness, infatuation, and pride. Going for popular lessons in insight meditation without knowing what it is all about involves ignorance, craving, and greed that leads to suffering because it is full of grasping and clinging. However, if you wish to realize Nibbāna, after clearly and intelligently under- standing suffering and the means for its quenching, and in this frame of mind steadily and earnestly learn insight meditation in a proper way, that desire for Nibbāna isn’t craving or suffering. So wanting isn’t necessarily always craving. It depends on where it has its origin. If desire stems from ignorance and defilements, the symptoms will be similar to those of chronic hunger – that chasing without ever catching. We speak of this chronically hungry condition as ‘spontaneous rebirth as a hungry ghost’ (peta).
The last woeful realm is the asuras (cowardly titans). First, to explain the word asura: sura means ‘brave, courageous,’ and a means ‘not,’ thus, asura means ‘not brave’ or ‘cowardly.’ Understand this as whenever we are spontaneously reborn as asuras. Being afraid of harmless little lizards, millipedes, or earthworms is unjustified fear and a form of suffering. To be afraid unnecessarily, without a good cause, or from thinking about something too much, is rebirth as asura. We may fear death, but our fear is made a hundred or a thousand times greater by our own exaggeration. Fear torments people all the time. Afraid of falling into hell, we become asuras instead. Our fears of falling into the four woeful realms mean rebirth as asuras every day, day after day, month after month, year in and year out. If we act rightly and don’t fall into the woeful realms these days, months, and years, we can be sure of not falling into any woeful realms as depicted on temple walls, after death.
This interpretation of the painful apāya realms agrees in meaning and purpose with what the Buddha taught. There’s no reason to be foolish about them. Confused beliefs regarding them should be recognized as superstition. The most pitiable thing about Buddhists is the inaccurate way we interpret the Buddha’s teachings and the foolish ways we put them into practice. Please take this example of superstitious understanding of apāya and apply this approach to other beliefs.*** There is no need to go looking for superstition in other places. In the commentaries there are references to people imitating the behavior of cows and dogs, which were practices current in India at the time of the Buddha, though they don’t exist today. Still, there are plenty of modern behaviors that are just as foolish and much more undesirable. So give up all superstitions, both old-fashioned and modern, and enter the stream of Nibbāna. Give up belief in a permanent ego-entity, give up doubt, and give up superstition in order to enter the stream of Nibbāna and open the Dhamma-Eye – the eye that sees Dhamma and is free of delusion and ignorance.
Bear in mind that we common worldlings always have a certain measure of ignorance and delusion in the forms of ego-belief, doubt, and superstition. We must raise our levels beyond these three kinds of foolishness in order to enter the stream of Nibbāna. From that point on there is an inclining flow, a convenient sloping downward towards Nibbāna, like a large stone rolling down a mountainside. If you are to become acquainted with Nibbāna and the stream of Nibbāna, if you are to practice towards realizing Nibbāna, you must understand that these three kinds of delusion and foolishness must be abandoned before one can give up sensual desire and ill-will, which are fetters of a higher and more subtle order. Simply giving up these three forms of ignorance constitutes entering the stream of Nibbāna. To completely give up self- centeredness, doubt in pinpointing one’s life objective, and ingrained superstitious behavior is to enter the stream of Nibbāna. You can see that this kind of giving up is universally valuable and applicable to everyone in the world. These three forms of ignorance are undesirable. As soon as we are able to abandon them, we wake up to the ariyan level. Prior to this, we were foolish, deluded people, lowly worldlings, not at all noble. When we have improved and progressed to the highest level of worldlings, we must advance still further, reaching the stage where there’s nowhere to go except to enter the stream of Nibbāna by becoming sotāpanna. From there, we naturally incline, progress, and flow on to Nibbāna itself.
The practice leading away from grasping, self-centered- ness, and delusion is to investigate and see everything as unworthy of being grasped at or clung to. Such practice slices through doubt, hesitancy, foolishness, and self-centeredness. Therefore, we ought to get interested in non-clinging starting right this very minute, on the level most appropriate for us. If you fail in an examination there’s no need to weep. Simply determine to start again and do your best. If you pass an examination, don’t get carried away. Realize that this is just the normal way of things. Then there will have arisen some understanding of non-grasping and non-clinging.
When you are sitting for an examination, just forget about yourself. Listen carefully! When starting to write an answer, just forget about being yourself. Forget about the ‘me’ who is being tested and who will pass or fail. Think only of taking the exam. You may think beforehand about how to pass the examination successfully, but as soon as you start to write – forget all that. Leave only concentration that will pierce the questions and discover the answers. Mind free of any ‘me’ and ‘mine,’ empty of passing and failing, is immediately agile and clean. It remembers instantly and thinks keenly. Sitting for an examination with proper concentration produces good results. This is how to apply mind free of clinging (cit-waang), that is, Buddha’s non-grasping and non-clinging, when sitting for examinations. In this way, you will be good.
Some who can’t let go always feel anxious about failing. They become so nervous that they can’t call to mind what they have learned. They can’t write accurate and orderly answers. Consequently, they fail thoroughly. Others are carried away by the idea that ‘I’m brilliant, I’m certain to pass.’ Such students carried away by this sort of grasping and clinging are also bound to do poorly, because they lack cit-waang. On the other hand, anyone with cit-waang has no ‘me’ or ‘mine’ involved and doesn’t become panicky or over-confident. There is only concentration, which is a natural power. Entirely forgetting about self, they comfortably pass. This is an elementary, most basic example of the beneficial effects of non-attachment and of cit-waang.
A foolish person, upon hearing the word suññatā mentioned in temple lecture halls, understands it as a material vacuum, nothingness or something meaning- less.’ Such materialistic emptiness is how certain groups understand it. The suññatā of the Buddha means absence of anything that we should grasp at and cling to as being an abiding entity, essence, or self, although physically anything can be there in its entirety. If we cling, there is dukkha; if we don’t cling, there is freedom from dukkha. The world is described as empty because there’s nothing whatsoever that we can get away with grasping. So we must cope with this empty world with mind that doesn’t cling. If we need something, we go after it with mind free from grasping, so that our objective is achieved without becoming a source of suffering.
Misunderstanding the word ‘empty,’ just this one single word, is enormous superstition (sīlabbata-parāmāsa) that stops people cold and constitutes a major obstacle to them finding the stream of Nibbāna. Instead, let’s understand the word ‘empty,’ and all other words used by the Buddha, properly and completely. He described the world as empty because there’s nothing in it that can be taken as a self or ego. He answered Mogharāja’s question by saying, ‘Always regard the world as something empty. Look always on this world with all that it contains as empty.’**** Viewing it as empty, mind is automatically free of grasping and clinging. Lust, hatred, and delusion cannot occur. Seeing like this is the meaning of arahant. If not successful yet, keep on trying. Although still an ordinary person, one will suffer less. No suffering arises as long as there is cit-waang. Whenever one gets carried away and lapses, there is suffering again. If we keep good watch, empty-free increasingly often and lastingly, we penetrate to the core of Buddhism by entering the stream of Nibbāna.
(*) In the 1960s, 20 baht equaled 1 US dollar.
(**) 100 satang equal 1 baht.
(***) The same can be said for modern beliefs imported from the West.
(****) Sn 5.16, Mogharāja Sutta.
(From “Buddha-Dhamma for Inquiring Minds”)
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Buddha-Dhamma for Students (title of original translation) was composed of two talks given by Ajahn Buddhadāsa in January 1966 to students at Thammasat University, Bangkok. It was translated from the Thai by Rod Bucknell, and revised in 2018 by Santikaro Upasaka. To read/download as free ebook (pdf).
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Photo: Buddhadāsa Indapañño Archives D-229