Question Posted by
u/lucid24-frankk20 hours ago
Serious question.
What exactly is the nature of the staff of workers (not just ones who torture) that keep hell running smoothly?
Are they mentally created non-sentient beings that do the torture,
or are the staff members of hell sentient beings that are reborn there to serve for a period of time?
If latter is the case,
is it considered good karma, bad karma, or neutral karma to be reborn there?
I can imagine some beings who are hell bent on revenge (pun intended), would not mind being reborn in hell as a staff member to finally get payback on some being who they were wronged by.
Especially if they could resolve the length of time they wish to be serve there.
Do hell staff members experience suffering? Are they forced to work continuously?
Along the same line of questioning, what is the nature of second class beings reborn in deva realms?
For example the service animals, The royal elephants, horses, etc.?
What kind of karma results in that kind of rebirth?
do some beings aspire for that rebirth, or is it result of incomplete merit, not qualifying for rebirth as a first class citizen in a deva realm?
Forum discussion
Why do many of you seem to assume the entire staff of hell consists of torturers who enjoy torturing?
I've always assumed there must be all kind of denizens that keep hell running smoothly.
And why do you assume the workers that keep the prisoners of hell in line all have to torture prisoners and enjoy the torture?
Have you not heard of prison security guards in the human realm?
Not all of them enjoy seeing prisoners suffer, or doing anything deliberate to provoke more suffering for others.
Vasubandhu argues #1, a no-longer extant sutra translated into Chinese (likely sometime before the 5th century) and preserved in a liturgical text argues #2, laying out the backstory that King Yama his the eighteen head wardens were once the rulers of a kingdom which was being attacked.
At their dying moment, their minds, overcome by spite, wished to torture their enemies for eons to come, and by that spiteful wish, they became reborn as the wardens of hell. In this state, they get to torture others, but they themselves are tortured by the instruments of their own torture. Three times a day, King Yama's mouth is pried apart by burning hot hooks and molten copper flows down his throat and burns him inside out. As long as they hold onto their spite, they will continue existing in such a form.
Alternatively, you can think of this as entirely metaphorical for the karmic result of holding onto spite (immensely harmful to both self and other), or you can see it as a curious question to which Buddhists developed varying answers.
From Dan Lusthaus' page on Vasubandhu, under his review of The Twenty Verses:
In an intriguing example, Vasubandhu argues that the torturing guards in hell are not real beings but communal projections by hell denizens with which they torture themselves, since it is illogical that one would be born into hell unless one deserved it based on one's previous actions, and if so, then one would not be immune to hell's tortures--but the guards don't suffer, they mete out suffering. The implication of his argument is that hell itself is merely a paranoid projection. If one wished to make a similar point about intersubjective grouping of interpretations, one could use a common, if scatological example: the difference in the ways humans and flies respond to excrement. Flies flock to it, while humans revile it as filthy and disgusting. Each views excrement according to the life condition, the sort of genetic programming and communal attitude collectively adhered to by its own species. Each takes its interpretation to accurately reference the intrinsic nature and qualities of the thing itself, rather than recognizing that the horizons of such interpretations are karmically conditioned.
And from Ācārya Malcolm:
The physical existence of hell realms are generally negated in Mahāyāna. They are experiences one can be born into, but they do not exist underground, and further, it is argued that they cannot be real places because the hell guardians would reap untold negative karma if they were anything other than mental projections. So, in essence, we have to understand the hell realms are just extremely negative mental states that last eons, with no physical location. This includes Vajra Hell, which is just another name for Avici Hell.
There is no physical location for the eighteen hells and the temporary hells. They are experienced as if they are real by someone who takes apparitional birth in a mental body, similar to a bardo being. However, if you are born in a hell realm, you will experience it as real and physical.
This also explains why, when in hell, one cannot see other beings there, apart from hell guardians. One can only hear the wails of other beings in hell, which are basically means they are also your projections.
Lam Rim texts talk about it. They discuss projecting and finishing karmas.
A projecting karma is a karma which dictates the realm that you're born into.
A finishing karma is one that fills in what the rest of that realm is like.
Another interesting example is pet dogs. Beings who planted a lot of seeds for ignorance will be reborn as an animal, but if they were kind and helpful to people, they might be reborn as a golden retriever and a nice person's home instead of a suffering dog on the streets of bylakuppe.
Similarly, the lords of hell were cruel and so they were born into hell realms, but they also rendered service to others giving them the karmic result of power.
I heard a story once and don't remember where, I think possibly it was from Master Thich Nhat Hanh.
But the story is about our wonderful Buddha's past lives.
In one of his past lives the Blessed One was born in hell and was enduring great suffering.
In that hell it was only the Blessed One, another person that also suffered and a hell warden.
Here you can read the story.
I assume hell wardens are people who have been severely abused in a past life and have been put in hell by other people, and now they're repaying the abuser or others who have abused them in past lives. That's how I understand it.
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