Are the hell and hungry ghost realms a creation of the mind?

by Venerable Thubten Chodron

Q: Sometimes we hear others say, “Okay, animals exist but the hell and hungry ghost realms?” Are the lower realms a creation of the mind? How can we make sense of them? – S.B.

A: There are three different kinds of phenomena. Manifest phenomena are the ones we can contact directly with our senses, like a table and animals that we can see. Hidden phenomena are things that we understand through inference or logic, and only later do we realise it with direct perception. Extremely hidden phenomena are things we come to understand through accepting somebody else’s word on it because that person is very knowledgeable and has no reason at all to deceive us.

The realms of hell beings and hungry ghosts might be manifest phenomena for the beings living inside such realms. But for us, they are extremely hidden and we have to rely on the word of somebody else to understand them and then keep checking to see if the existence of such realms makes sense for us. If the Buddha has touched your heart in some way and his words have seemed true to you, then this gives you a little bit more space in the mind to consider the existence of such lower realms that you can’t see.

The different realms of existence arise dependently. The lower realms come into existence because the cause for them exists. The cause is negative action. Our personal negative action is what creates our rebirth inside the hell and hungry ghost realms. So in some ways they are definitely created by the mind. Our actions are what propel us to take that kind of rebirth. Shantideva, a great Indian sage once said, “By whom were the weapons of hell zealously forged? Who made the burning iron ground and whence did the conflagration come? The Buddha taught that all these stem from the evil mind, there’s nothing to be feared in the three realms apart from the mind.”

If it’s our own mind that creates our existence in the lower realms, how does that happen and arise? Recall a time when you were really paranoid and very fearful, terrified, so freaked out and frightened that there was a lot of anger too. Recall a time in your life when you were like that, and imagine getting stuck in that mental state, so stuck in that fearful, paranoid, angry mental state that everything you saw, you saw through that filter. If that mental state began to manifest externally, as your environment and as your body, that would be what the hellish realm is like.

The experience is so intensified that it determines how everything appears to you. For instance, if somebody has a very disturbed mind, even though nobody else is trying to harm him, he sees harm everywhere. Even though there is no danger, he is terrified. Just imagine the mind becoming so exaggerated and huge that it turns into the environment and body. So even if someone takes him out of that environment and places him in a safe place, he’d still see things exactly the same way, because his mind is completely stuck.

Or recall a time in your life when your mind was completely obsessed, when you had so much craving and clinging, and wanted something you didn’t have so badly that you couldn’t function because your mind was totally stuck. This could happen, for example, when relationships break up. The mind is just completely stuck on the other person and you cannot think about anything else, because there’s so much clinging, attachment and frustration. Now imagine again, having this mental state grow so large that it becomes your environment and body. Your whole life experience is one of such immense clinging that it is continuously frustrating. Everything you want just evades you, and your mind is completely obsessed. This is the realm of the hungry ghosts.

When we contemplate and meditate about the lower realms, it increases our mindfulness to stop destructive behavioural patterns, so that we make our lives meaningful right now. Understanding these kinds of sufferings and other types of rebirth gives us tremendous impetus to purify our minds and to stop following our continual destructive behavioural patterns. Doing so protects us from sufferings in the future and transforms our minds.

Imagine instead of developing loving-kindness, patience, generosity and wisdom, we develop our anger, jealousy, pride and attachment. What happens? Our mental state will degenerate. It would be really illogical to think, "Oh yes, yes, my mind can become a Buddha’s but it can’t become an animal’s or it can’t become a hungry ghost’s." What we become is completely dependent on our mental states, our mental habits, and on the kind of qualities we cultivate. We can cultivate the good qualities or we can just let the bad qualities run the show. It’s completely up to us: our whole experience that follows is a result of our own mental states.

Our mental states do affect our body, even in this human body of ours. The mind and body are connected. Hence if we let the mind go in whichever direction it wants, our body in this life will also go in the corresponding direction, and so will our body in the next life. Conversely, if we take the time to develop loving-kindness and patience now, our body will be affected in this life. Studies have shown that people are healed from diseases much more rapidly if they have positive mental states. So one’s mental state does affect one’s body in this life, and will affect one’s body in future lives.