In Tibetan Buddhism hell is an extremely important topic which is expounded in a lot of stories. A lot of Westerners don't understand why Buddhism has hell realms at all since it is a religion based on the mind, but one of my teachers put it this way: You experience various forms of hell here on earth because of your mind, and it's the same way if you cling to desire when you die. Think of all the terrible thoughts that you can possibly have--These are the basis for all the possible hell realms you can experience after you die if you don't discover virtuous conduct.
@@danielsparham Buddhism isn't getting rid of desire--It's conditioning yourself to not cling to your desires in order to make suffering decrease. Once you stop clinging to attachment and aversion, they both decrease overall.
@@danielsparham i understand. desires are indeed what give us motivation... but the idea is to have gratefulness be your default instead of desire. to understand that no matter what you desire you still already have everything you need or it is very much easy to get... without like putting others down to get it
I guess naraka/diyu/jigoku could be more accurately translated as purgatory, as their ultimate role is purification, not punishment. Growing up Buddhist I never dreaded the concept like some of my Christian friends do, it always felt like a "hey, don't be a bad person or your soul is going to go to this really sucky prison", not "your soul will burn for all eternity".
You sugar coting it your hells has is far more descriptive of the forms of punishment they have and no in many Abrahamic traditions you could be eventually saved from hell
I grew up Catholic and from the video it looks like Catholicism is more similar to Buddhism than the protestant/evangelical versions of Christianity. Unlike evangelicals where only “grace” can save you, Catholicism is based on works. Good people go straight to heaven, the really evil unrepentant go to hell, but the majority end up in purgatory for cleansing. The length of the stay is determined by how many sins one has to cleanse and can be reduced by prayers of the living. The more the prayers the higher the discount. Paying to have mass and prayers said for the benefit of the soul of a passed love one used to be customary. In Italy we also have our own story of Dante going to a tour of the underworld and back, with a detailed description of all the “amenities” there. It’s not scripture but it’s almost considered as such in popular religiosity.
I've been a Buddhist since I was a kid, and anytime I was handed a Buddhism book about almost anything, I always try and find something that relates to the afterlife. And when I'm really lucky, I find a couple of pages filled with art of Neraka. It was pretty cool actually.
Can you recommend the names of some good books? I see it mentioned in alot of comments in Buddhist videos that the books have cool art. It doesn't have to be English books! I'd love to read some super old like 200 year old books even if I can't translate them it would be awesome to own something like that
There's a reason why Yama is called the dharmaraya, the king of justice. I am happy that the part about hell was never a shock for me, since I grew up in a Christian country with parents who taught me about hinduism and buddhism. Learning about hindu hell and buddhist hell as a child was surprisingly not that shocking. It was always explained to me that hell is temporary and also the consequence of our actions. I remember some of the punishments, but they all give a clear message: the pain you cause to others, and your vile thoughts ultimately hurts yourself, so it is better avoid hell in this life by doing your best to be a good person.
@@SiiNTi If u truly feel remorse, then it does make a difference bcz feeling remorse is a suffering so, u are paying for your wrong doing & to make everything, the suffering go away u need to be kind & compassionate & for that u need to practice Dharma. ✌️
@@SiiNTi I think your feelings of guilt are already your "punishment" (karma isn't always physical, but also psychological). If you're genuinely willing to make up for the wrongs you've done, then the bad karmas you get will be less severe, and you may even accumulate some good karmas.
@@kaldol2luckyif you remorse over something, sin stays singular. If you don’t, the same sim folds in hundreds. That’s what we believe in Tibetan Buddhism
A great video and I appreciated your segment on Orientalism. Our perception of Buddhism is painted by the hippie counterculture’s interpretation of Asian religions without really understanding the millennia long histories of these practices. It’s not talked about often enough and I appreciate you spoke about it.
@@chendaforest My Japanese cousin told me goths in Japan we’re really into crosses because they heard Jesus came back from the dead. “Coming back from the dead” is not an unheard of story in Japanese religions and myths but for some reason when Jesus does it it’s kinda dark and mysterious.
@@DenisRicardo I'm not into goth culture myself but ordinary peeps here in Japan know literally nothing about Christianity (or Buddhism FYI) and crosses are liberally used purely for cool factor in a lot of clothing brands targeting younger teens. Obviously, as they get older they become super cringe tho lol
@@chendaforest well judging by some animes for example Saint Seiya when one character is said to be Jesus, and Lucifer also appears in what of the movies. Or how there was a controversy in the West because one character in DBZ is called "Mr Satan" and fundies yell that it was satanic while asked its creators just though that Satan was the name of a Western demon and though it was like calling a character "Oni".
Great segment on positive Orientalism. Its a common problem I see when trying to find english resources on eastern religions. The book Orientalism is a little dated, but still a great introduction to the topic I'd highly recommend people read.
@@rasmusn.e.m1064 Its been a few years since I've read it so my memory is imperfect. I found Said prone to making overly sweeping statements that generalized entire fields of thought as low quality and based on what he called Orientalism. The fields he critiqued did (and still do) have serious issues of stereotyping and Orientalism I find he focused too narrowly on a small number of writers and framing it like they represent their entire fields. Its still a great starting point and I highly recommend you read it. These critiques are not new and Said's latter writing and other post colonial writers do a great job of improving.
@@DianaCHewitt "Focused on a small number of writers and framed it like they represent their entire field" - this, I can't take claims of "orientalism" too seriously.
@@abominationdesolation8322 Orientalism is a very real thing and many writers do fall into the trap of uncritically believing stereotypes. Flawed criticism can still be useful. The fields of history, linguistics, and anthropology have made massive strides toward being less biased than during when Said first wrote the book and a small portion of that change was a product of his criticism. Modern hippy-esque writers are very prone to Orientalism. Asia isn't some mystical land full of Buddhist harmony. Its a place filled with normal humans with normal human flaws.
As an asian buddhist, i have a lot of things want to say when seeing some misconception Western people often have. But the end of the day, returning to Buddha's teaching - there is no such thing wrong so that there is no such thing right. I'm very glad that you make a video about this aspect about Buddhism. Buddhism is special because it's very keeping with the goal of the seeker. If you look at Buddhism as a scholar, it can be controversial sometime, just like a loop - "oh Buddhism is more like Atheism. Oh Buddhism is more about supernatural....." . So yeah, history and theory of Buddhism is very intersting :vvv
There is sanskrit buddhism and chinese buddhism, both differ greatly. the former being mostly out of practice, the latter having more mysticism and dogma. the original buddha wasn't chinese afterall. probably why many are confused...
This is an excellent video! I myself belong to Vaidika Astika Dharma (Hindu) but I love reading about Nastikas (Buddhism, Ajivika, Ajnana, Carvaka and Jainism) too. We have shared entities with both philosophies. It's really hard to come by good material but you're one of the best channels I've come across so far!
@@jayantkamble6082 Hinduism considers it to be something, because of it's nature as accepting diversity. Will you cry about that? Buddha taught hindus, not buddhists.
@@CountingStars333 maybe you don't know much about Buddhism in India Current Hinduism is a blend of Buddhism, Jainism and many other religions. May be you should know before Buddha became Buddha, he was the follower of Sanatan Dharma. He is also considered as 10th avatar of Lord Vishnu ( one of the Trinity god ). Stories vary from region to region. People's from ancient times really respected each other's religion. I still have statue of Buddha in my house
I feel that suffering is a very important, 'don't wanna skip it' part of life. 5 years in depression taught me countless lessons I'd never dare to regret. Invite pain as much as you would/do its cousin, joy.
Singaporean here, Haw Par Villa is a genuinely terrifying but also extremely enlightening place. You don’t just learn about various Chinese mythology, but also get a greater understanding of how they’ve been infused into Chinese culture and way of life. It’s also said to be extremely haunted, but hey, that just adds to the atmosphere of the place.
How religious are Singaporens? I ask because it is a very developed country with, I believe, a strong social safefy net. Such countries tend to be very areligious, at least in the west.
@@chendaforest that’s a great question! The government here makes it a really strong point to build a society and culture where everyone respects everyone else. It’s not uncommon to have a Buddhist or Taoist temple 5 minutes away from a Christian church or a Muslim mosque. Children are also grouped into classrooms with a mix of races and religions as well, so they’re all exposed to different cultures from a young age. Singapore also has a substantially ageing population too, so there’s still a majority of older people who are quite religious. That said, the vast majority of people here are of Chinese ethnicity, so Buddhism and Taoism are the two most common religions, followed by Christianity and Islam.
@@boomjykeo2 thanks Justin! Yes thats interesting, I admire a lot of things about Singapore. Taoism and Chinese folk religion are interesting, although I know very little about them.
@@TryinaD not too sure about what the actual numbers are, but a lot of the non-religious ones tend to from the younger population, such as late millennials like myself or Gen Z, etc.
The Hell Realms are honestly one of my favorite parts of Buddhism, and I think it sucks that so many people don't mention them. They are amazing fodder for good fiction writing, to say the least, and not talking about them removes so much depth and life from the religion.
I'm a Sri Lankan. Theravada Buddhist ... I watch all episodes which relate to Buddhism. I give honor to you BCS your videos talk about the most realistic Buddhism and actually what it is... I'm so impressed with your studies and understand about it. The due respect pls do an episode about Theravada Buddhism .... BCS is according to Buddha and my belief showing the path to real satisfaction and the end of suffering of humans is the most valuable help you can do to another human...Then you will be a "Kalyana Mithara" to many more intellectual humans seeking the ultimate truth... I may Bless you with Nobal Triple Jem to obtain " Nirwana " as soon as possible...
I’m a Theravada Buddhist in the US, I appreciate him covering the part about the west’s view on things. I’ve run into a lot of people who are quite surprised when they discuss Buddhism with me and the subject turns to Buddhist Hell realms and how astonished they are. I get a lot of questions about the Dalai Lama and Kung fu as well, not a lot is known about Buddhism here and virtually nothing the different branches.
That Yama stuff makes sense on a level. I remember getting in trouble at school and being given the choice between a couple of days of boring in school suspension, or a couple of whacks with the paddle. The paddle was my choice most of the time.
Your point about "positive orientalism" is so, so important and I'm glad you brought it up. It really isn't harmless to the traditions it's applied to. That sort of "romanticizing" is the reason people look at traditional Buddhism as somehow corrupted compared to Westernized equivalents which are, in fact, further away from what the Buddha taught. It isn't even romanticization in my opinion because it isn't necessarily making it look better in everyone's eyes, just forcing it to be more palatable to Western sensibilities.
I don't really agree with "further away from what the Buddha taught". The forms of Buddhism that are most similar to other religions are the ones that literally incorporate elements from other religions.
@@NovaSaber Yeah Buddhism is a very malleable and adaptable belief system, that’s part of what made it able to spread across so many different cultures.
@@NovaSaber Secularized Buddhism strips out core elements like reincarnation, the cosmology, devotional practice, and usually a large chunk of the ethics. Acting like they're somehow practising something closer to the teachings of the historical Buddha because they never pray to folk deities alongside Buddhist ones is pretty ridiculous. They're engaging in more syncretism than any traditional Buddhist lineage by allowing another belief system to completely subsume the philosophical backdrop and principles of Buddhism instead of just adopting some higher level principals from elsewhere like other Buddhist lineages have. Buddhism will change as it comes to the West, but secularization is not comparable to the changes Buddhism has gone through as it's spread throughout Asia. Elsewhere it was a change of emphasis, customs, aesthetics, and organizational structure with the core worldview and teachings staying in tact. Secularization replaces the fundamental worldview of Buddhism with one that the Buddha rejected. I think it's great that atheists are interested in the Buddha's teachings, and it is great that they want to apply them to their lives. Zero issue with that at all. The problem comes when secularized Buddhist systems are treated as if they're somehow closer to "true Buddhism" which is ridiculous and harmful to traditional Buddhist communities.
I'm been a Buddhist for like 20 years, there's no need for a "westernize" version of Buddhism, if you go to any traditional school in the West like the many Tibetan schools, Zen, Pure Land etc. you will be thought the traditional doctrine. I was thought about the 10 hells very early on during the general meetings. Most Buddhist centers in the West are administered by Easterners who do not mellow down their religion. Now if you go to a hippie camp were no one has really study Buddhism is another matter. That why lineages are a thing in Buddhism.
@@lethemyrsmith2847 First, I disagree with the claim that common Western understanding of Buddhism doesn't still include rebirth. Even if there are very many people who don't believe the rebirth part and actually call themselves "Buddhists" instead of just "Buddhist-influenced"or something, which I don't think is the case, I would still assume that they know that's part of the original version. Second, the "cosmology" (which is no such thing) is NOT a core element, any more than creationism is to Christianity. It's just not. In fact, even outright non-theistic forms of Buddhism have been around for centuries.
Yes, I am from a buddhish family. When I was young I heard all about all kinds of hells and what kinds of torture they do. It was very scary. And there were books filled with detailed drawings of the hells too. For me the budhish worldview is actually really really scary as it seems to be a system that is designed to keep you surffering forever with the only way out being extremely unobtainable and paradoxical.
Actually, since the system is not made by a moral arbiter, it is extremely breakable with cheese strategies like a video game. Karma is more like a level and corruption system in an RPG than how it is usually shown. That explains why dumb karma like a dumb software is able to keep it up, why you don't lose sentience on entering a lower lifeform, why good and bad karma do not cancel, etc. Karma is only really supposed to nudge you in the direction. The main reason for being good is just because you will reincarnate on Earth. Sure, technically it means you have no reason to directly care about present time people, except for the chaos it will start immediately and when they reincarnate. But it is only off by an infinitesimal percent.
The best example is a lot of the punishments in Hell actually come from the government being incredibly authoritarian, understandable as almost all animals, plants, fungi, and sapient beings there are evil and thus hard to trust. Thus, any level up (good karma) that makes you get along better in an authoritarian regime has a high chance of making you immune to the punishment. E.g. not taking risks out of greed/pride, not being addicted to material desires so you can land yourself in trouble, a general trend to non-violence so no one retaliates, being trustworthy etc. Your personality does not completely reset when you reincarnate and your resting personality is especially not affected.
The kind of Buddhism I practice, the focus is on Pure Realms/Buddha Fields, taking the Bodhisattva Vow, and how to get to the Pure realm like Sukhavati. I've barely heard about the Hell Realms accept light descriptions of hungry ghosts and a little bit of "suffering the extremes of cold and heat" as a description for the hell realms. I've read several books, watched a lot of teachings, and none of them even mention the hell realms as it's believed if one has found the Dharma, begun the path of the Bodhisattva, and stick with it, then one will be able to be reborn in at least Amitabha's pure realm Sukhavati.
mmhmm, the other commenter's right if you read the Mu Lien story there are a lot of ways to get out actually, but parts of it also depend if your family is willing to help or if rites are done accordingly
Just that after Catholic purgatory, these ex sinners then go to heaven. Buddhist ex hell beings just re-enter the cycle of reincarnation according to other unspent karma and habits they still have.
Yes, I was a Catholic that converted to buddhism and have also noticed some similarities in that regard. The difference being that in buddhism no suffering is eternal.
Long list of things in common with “Mediterranean” Catholicism, including the journey to hell. Well, Dante’s Inferno is not scripture but still its depiction of hell and purgatory has left a mark in popular religiosity.
@@SrValeriolete nor is it in Christianity - if you actually read the scriptures. If you're interested in scripture in it's context (ANE) I'd recommend Michael Heiser's Naked Bible Podcast - episode 090 for the subject at hand. They are free and can be found by using your favorite search engine or on any major podcast platform. Cheers.
I can't thank enough for this an amazing and informative video created by ReligionForBreakfast, I've learned tons of useful information by just watching you as well as giving recommendations to my all friends no matter what they believe, sceptical, believer, atheist.
As someone who grew up in Taiwan, all of these Buddhism stories are quite familiar to me, and I believe are rather commonly heard stories. Common curses in Chinese even mention 18 levels of hell. I don't think I am unaware of this, but it is interesting how westerners often don't think the concept exist in easterner cultures.
Chinese mythology borrowed some influence from Indian mythology through Buddhism. Some traces of Indian influence can also be detected in Korean culture and Japanese culture due to Buddhism.
But the influence of Hinduism never directly reached East Asia. While both Hinduism and Buddhism have strong influences in Southeast Asia. Many deities and gods in Thailand have their origins from Indian mythology for instances - Brahma, Garuda and Hanuman e.g.
@@jackjackyphantom8854 the way you said ‘borrowed’ is weird, I mean they adopted Buddhism, of course every knowledge they have to get from Buddhism. In Thailand, like many south east Asia, Brahma came, then later it’s Buddhism, we Thai people don’t actually call the religion as Hindu, we call it Brahm. Btw everybody know it’s from India, it’s taught in history.
I assumed Chinese people were atheists. Given that China illegally occupied a peaceful Buddhist nation, Tibet, destroying +6000 monasteries, killing innocent monks & nuns and the communist founder, Mao, calling religion a poison.
positive orientalism seems really commum among a lot of 'spiritual channels' here on youtube. very often i see them talking about the west as this horrible capitalist place where everybody is selfish and only care about consumerism, while the the east (specially India) is this incredible place, full of so called 'spiritual people'. Such a naive view is all over the place among so called 'spiritual teachers' here on youtube, and they are almost always western people, go figure. i guess they get disapointed with our society, and end up believing the east is somehow different, better.
@@maxion5109 yes, they are different, but these youtubers seems to think that in the east, ppl are better than western, they believe easterns are 'super spiritual' and actually take spirituality seriously contrary to western christians for example. that's a naive worldview.
I did not expect this video to be as interesting as it was, but you surprised me and I thank you for it! I learned a lot about mythology, Buddhism, and history.
One of my teachers made me read Geshe Lhundub Sopa's descriptions of the hells from his commentary on the great treatise and the vivid descriptions really had the intended effect on me, I couldn't eat for a while afterward but came out of it with a renewed dedication to good action xD
Your videos are incredible. Your scholarly lens is refreshing and it’s nice to see someone working to unravel biases :) Thank you for your contribution 🙏
"Dramatic reenactment " 😆 I could only imagine the production budget just for that clip. On a serious note, I appreciate your videos. They lend to my practice of learning something new everyday.
I just wanna say RFB is my absolute favorite. I've been interested in anthropology of religion for 25 years and your stuff is amazing, always gets me researching/reading further. My partner is always like 'are you watching the Religion For Breakfast guy again?' Yup. Thanks so much for your videos!
You should create a video about how Hinduism and the early relationship with Buddhism. And how religion from South and East Asia interact and evolve around each other.
@@matheussantana2390 Buddha is believed to be the 9th(second last) Avatar of Vishnu. The 10th one is still awaited(it'll be there at the end of Kalyug)
@@matheussantana2390 There's no evidence of strife among eastern religions. We have never had an idea of a monopoly on God. Heck, many don't even have gods. Ashoka, India's most fearless venerated warrior was Buddhist, not Hindu.
it's a very common type of story. Ancient greece, rome, japan, judaism and india all have stories about people going to hell to save a loved one and returning without their loved one
The Journey To The West has a similar plot arc as well, where a King tours hell, although that one was undoubtedly inspired by the traditions discussed here since the author was very very Buddhist.
I was visiting a temple in Japan once, I think it was outside Hiroshima, that had dioramas of hell in a small cave system under the main building. I remember thinking it was odd at the time - especially given that I was more familiar with a subterranean hell being a Christian motif. But now it makes so much sense! Thank you
The underworld, Hades or Hell, is where the dead go according to many religions like Greek and Egyptian state religions. Even the Bible (Christian or otherwise) indicates that even saints and prophets went to Hell. In Christianity, Jesus descended to Hell first so he could free the patriarchs like Abraham from the higher levels (which were very utopian compared to the lower realms).
That story of Mulian really reminds me of Dante's Inferno where a man travels through hell (and later through purgatory and heaven) to save his friend from eternal damnation. The funny thing about Dante's Inferno is that a lot about the way how hell is portrayed in western culture, media and modern day christianity is based on Dante's description of hell in his book Inferno, despite it not actually being Biblical canon. Inferno is quite literally christian fan-fiction from the 13th century. But Dante's vision of hell has nonetheless been used by the Catholic Church to scare people who disobeyed the church and is still commonly used in christian communities to scare non-believers or other christians, eventhough Dante's description is not actually in the Bible or even biblical canon. Sure, just like in the Bible, Dante's hell is a world of eternal torment, punishment and suffering. But the Bible does not describe hell in as much detail as Dante did and so this vision that we have when we in the western world think of hell is actually not in line with what Biblical hell actually looks like. It's the same with angels. Yes the Bible talks about angels being messengers and servants of God. But they're not winged humans with superpowers like how they are usually portrayed in art and modern media. They are more like very powerful spirits. Have you ever noticed in the Bible that whenever an angel speaks to a person, they say something along the lines of "Don't be scared"? That's because the way which angels in the Bible actually look is pretty terrifying. Instead of being winged humans with superpowers, they actually look like a giant ball of turning rings with hundreds of eyes and on it. Look up "biblical accurate angel" on Google and you'll see what I mean. No wonder people were scared and these angels had to calm down these people, they're super scary
Dante was not trying to save his guide Vergil,Vergil was an ancient Roman pagan poet and as a pagan could not be saved but was in Limbo -an in between area with no pain but no joys either.A lot of the details in the "Inferno" are taken from Greek and Roman mythology where the idea of a hell with fire and torments probably came from-but hell is mentioned in the New Testament -make no bones about it but there is no detailed description of it -this came later in late antiquity when church fathers and Christian saints and mystics went to town on describing the torments in detail
The thing about “turning rings” with eyes shouldn’t be taken as 100% accurate either. Angels can come in many forms. They can come as a “human” in the form of a homeless visitor needing shelter, or winged people, or turning rings. It’s good for a meme but they’re not consistently described that way in the Bible either.
Some angels are said to be beautiful, and some, the cherubim, were supposed to have four faces (lion, ox, eagle, and human) as well as many eyes and fire, as well as having many wings. There are actually only 4 flaming wheel eye angels, because those angels carry a chariot. Then there’s the 6-winged seraphim who are human-like and perpetually singing.
@@darkstarr984 Those four faces are also the symbolic visualizations of the four evangelical writers: Marcus (lion), Luke (ox), John (eagle) and Matthew (human)
Also one thing about buddhism as well is conversion. While it doesn’t go around like monotheistic religions promoting itself. It does have conversion, because someone who claims to be a buddhist, vs someone who took refuge in the three jewels and have a master is very different. So many people don’t consider it to be a religion because there is no creator, but we do worship some deities, and pay homage to the buddha. Buddha didn’t say those were not real or wrong, he just simply stated that worshiping gods and deities would not aid in anything when it comes to reaching enlightenment. Hope that helps!! Peace everyone!! 📿🙏🏼
It doesn't just not aid, it is frequently wholly counter-intuitive and spins for yourself a fake world for you to find enlightenment in. You basically set up another obstacle for yourself to overcome except it's one you'll find very hard to notice is even there.
@@dopaminecloud yeah, in my personal view of the buddha, I worship his qualities, what makes him a buddha. But on the personal view he is my teacher rather than a god. For a god is our lord who we have to obey versus a teacher who gently guides your way but still let you choose what to do. I totally agree with you, everything we do in this world is simply Illusion.
In the West, many people were introduced to Buddhism by the actor Richard Gere. It’s important, especially if you are just becoming aware of Buddhist teachings, that you know this was a specific form of Buddhism as was practiced in Tibet. Buddhism is so much more than that.
In Buddhism you should focus on the 3 studies: precepts, meditation and cultivating wisdom. A lot of people in North America sees only meditation, which is not what Buddhism is all about. I now realize that orientalism is a big contributor to that...
The main issue is pragmatism, which a lot of the Eastern faiths incorporate. Obviously, a place where all the animals, plants, fungi, and sapient beings are animated by evil souls will likely be terrible. Unless you are very scrappy. Also, some dogs live there, presumably because they are naturally pain resistant they barely notice where they are. Also a bunch of creatures from higher plains, who apparently ended up there for some reason or another. Maybe they were running from an army.
@@TomorrowWeLive I don't think anyone with a Fascist symbol as their profile picture is in a position to claim that they value learning about other cultures. Your ideology is probably the greatest expression of orientalism there is, treating anything and anyone outside your definition of 'the west' as sub-human
@@TomorrowWeLive The reverse, when people misrepresent Western culture, is called Occidentalism. So it’s not as if people using these terms believe *white people* are all ignorant of all cultures while the rest of humanity isn’t. Westeners are just much likelier to be orientalists than be occidentalists and misrepresent themselves, that’s why you mostly hear about the former.
@@TomorrowWeLive no I think comes down to the historical context of imperialism and living in a post modern world. Generally people are ignorant even of their religion. More often than not it was the general public would claim thier neighbor was a witch and try to get them killed more than not the inquisitors need to step in because they were aware people were very superstitious. This is that but for the modern day and because the west has secularised so much they sought superstitions elsewhere
I'd love to see some videos on the "positive Orientalism" thing. Like, was Kerouac just responding to the presentation of Buddhism given by, e.g., Suzuki? His presentation really seems very compatible with Kerouac's depiction.
SO glad you mention Orientalism here! I always find it an annoying obstacle of Western discussions about Buddhism but you handled it really gracefully :))
Wonderful. I had been involved in Buddhism for a while before I got into the descriptions of the hot and cold hells and I was more than a little disturbed in the description.
The enactments of naraka is also extremely common in Sri Lanka as well. Local temples often have very dramatic representations of hell and sometimes during poya days, local public places especially like schools will construct temporary naraka (or apayas as we call it here) where you can walk in and see each level of naraka as you progress. It's quite similar to an amusement park haunted house ride lol. Anyway, great job covering Buddhism as usual. Just wish that you will give Sri Lanka a more prominent place when discussing about buddha dharama.
Tbh… I assumed Chinese people were atheists. I see some Chinese people calling themselves Buddhist. Given that China illegally occupied a peaceful Buddhist nation, Tibet, destroying +6000 monasteries, killing innocent monks & nuns and the communist founder, Mao, calling religion a poison. Chinese people being a Buddhist is questionable
as a westerner who grew up entirely in the east, orientalism is real, and almost always "positive" orientalism, me and every local just roll our eyes at those hipster "travelers" who come for enlightenment
Enlightenment starts from within. hat's what those bourgeois entitled moronic tourists never understand. They just want to feel special because they are deeply not in their own lands which is why they will never be enlightened.
Great video.....as a Theravada Buddhist from south asia, I found a lot of stereotypical image of buddhism in America (they think all kinds of weird things about buddhism).....but thanks for shedding light on this matter. BTW, we actualy have 8 majon Niraya(Hell), Tiryaka(Animal) loka, Manussa(Human) loka, Asura(devil) loka, 6 Sagga(Heavens) loka,16 rupa(form) Brahma loka and 4 arupa(forless) Brahma loka.......yes buddhism is rich in mythology......
What scares me is the specificity of the length of time one must stay in a Naraka. Some for hundreds of millions of years. 2.5×10^21 in some cases! The amount of time to empty a barrel of seeds if you took out one seed every 100 years. Somehow that’s more terrifying to me than the vagueness of forever.
Thank you for making this video and raising the awareness on Buddhist cosmology. There are hells and havens, miracles, magic and all sorts of things. What is really fascinating is how these all tie together with the mindfulness and self-discovery parts of Buddhism that is popular in the west. Once you understand Buddhist phenomenology and psychology there is the understanding that there has to be hell realms. It is not removed from mindfulness at all.
I learned about Buddhist hells as a kid thanks to Shaka from Saint Seiya (Caballeros del Zodiaco). Funny enough, you could compare Western Orientalism with how that show uses Greek mythology.
Great episode though I understand that the length of time in these Hells is far longer than "hundreds of thousands of years". I think they start at 1.6x10¹² years and multiply by 8 for each level up to 3x10¹⁸. Not an insignificant amount of time! By way of comparison, the lowest level works out (if I've done my sums right) at over 100 times the age of the universe.
There's some debate among Buddhists (I'm Buddhist) to what exactly is the time in hells, there's no a exact amount you can pin and some translations are also faulty, in any case the average consideration is that in reality the number given just mean "a lot" or "incontable" like the number 8 million in Japanese. Should not be taken literally specially because it depends on translation.
This belief is one hell of a motivation to be in line, cthu. I would be the best-behaving person if i believed in karmic justice. Maybe we should teach unruly people this.
Thank you for this wonderful video. It was amazing to watch someone explain our realigion in such a good way. I can now just send this to my friends when they ask me
Great video! First of all, I'm a huge fan of your content. Second, I love this video in particular because I actually did my MPhil thesis on the depiction of hell in Buddhist Art, which I submitted a year ago. Again, great video and lots of love from Puerto Rico!
Glad you brought up the orientalist view of Buddhism! It’s not a monolith and there’s sects like pure land, that completely differs from the stereotypical view of Buddhism in the west. If you haven’t done so already, please talk about pure land buddhism! Edit: nevermind, you have!!
"...their work portrays American culture as strict and uptight, and Asian culture as focused on freewheeling journeys of self-discovery." That seems so contrary to everything I've ever learned about Asian culture that it baffles me as to where they got these notions. When I think of strict and uptight cultures, the first things that come to mind are the cram schools, tiger moms and karoshi (death by overwork) of East Asia.
The stereotype of "freewheeling journeys of self-discovery" in relation to Asian cultures is rooted in the gurus, sadhus and monks you find meditating in the Himalayas or across other parts of Asia and those who partake in Eastern religions. Not to mention the Asian wellness practices like yoga and mindfulness.
A fun passage about Avici hell (from the Niddesa, translation mine; the Avici hell is basically a giant oven): They run to the east, and from there to the west; The run to the north, and from there to the south; Everywhere they run, the doors are shut, The want to go forth, they seek for release. They can’t go forth from there; they obtain this by means of kamma, For those evildoers, their abundant kamma is not yet fully ripe. Where did this terror, suffering, and sorrow arise? It arises from his love, happiness, greed, joy and greed. Sounds like a nice place!
Yer name haha, ...man I watched the whole thing, but my desire to read comments and yt names was unfortunately probably distracting me haha, but I did find the whole thing fascinating still, haha if you know what I mean? just wish I would have gave it a better listen. So yer saying yer child hood would been a path of self discovery? Or did I just not listen? lol!
Or, one Hell. The one we make for ourselves. Little known to most is the heavens and hells in Buddhism are both another place and your internally created existence. You can see it either way: which ever will allow you to see reality for what it is. *As example in the Tibetan book of Liberation in the between states(Bardo Thodol/book of the dead) - it clearly explains these demons that we are tormented by: are mind born. They are real, both to us and in their effect, but they are not real in the sense we consider it. They are manifestations of aspects of experience, personality, attachment... Like the shadow to Jung.
@@alohm Storehouses, as explained by my lama, are generally used within the context of the school of Yogacara, or mind only. While I notice my lineage (Karma Kagyu) tends to emphasize Madhyamaka (middle way of Nagarjuna), I agree with the potentiality of ourselves making our own hells or even ones we can be unfortunately born with/into. This is Sakyamuni's Pure Realm and we only have to recognise it. It also brings to mind the Short Vajradhara Prayer and the line "Bless me to know Samara and Nirvana are not two." Though I feel the extremes of Yogacara in my experience, as with its description of emptiness, that passive nihilism can be born.
@@roxyamused Gharba is Sanskrit for womb which is often translated as treasury or storehouse ;) but you are correct that the storehouse(consciousness or self) alaya is the store of the self. Another context in this case.
This was a fantastic video and I love how you brought how our bias skews our perception and it really made me rethink how I view other religions. Thank you so much for making this video!
What do you think of the Lord Jesus Christ ? Here is what he says about hell. *Gospel of St. Luke* *Chapter 13* *The Narrow Door* 22 Then Jesus traveled throughout the towns and villages, teaching as He made His way toward Jerusalem. 23“Lord,” someone asked Him, “will only a few people be saved?” Jesus answered, 24“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. 25After the master of the house gets up and shuts the door, you will stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ But he will reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ 26Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ 27And he will answer, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers.’ 28There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves are thrown out. 29People will come from east and west and north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God. 30And indeed, some who are last will be first, and some who are first will be last.”
@@VirginMostPowerfull Buddhism has existed 500 years before Jesus was even born. What did the Buddhists back then feel about Jesus before he even existed? Can someone quote some meaningless text back then? Lol
@@yuhanzhang2882 I just asked a question, what's your problem ? Buddhism existing before doesn't prohibit him from answering. Besides, if you really want to do this then I suggest you look up the video "God in ancient China" to learn something new and hopefully humbling.
As an 'officially' Budhist who grew up in Budhist country(Thailand), I can tell you that Budhism is very pro-capitalist based on the idea that someone's wealth and 'Birthright' are the results of their Past-life Karma. This made me realized the 'Past-life Karma' might have always been a subliminal message to support wealth inequality. In Thailand, budhism is very consumerism friendly. Our Budhist monks are among the richest group of people in the country. And Thailand is not 'serene' per-say. Our people are quite wild from time to time. :D Love your video. I learnt more about Budhism in other countries here than schools even teached me.
Thailand is also pretty damned liberal with its death penalty, which I've seen monks themselves advocate for, since the victim will just be reincarnated and given another chance anyway. I've also seen men in saffron robes and Nike sneakers smoking cigarettes. I think Buddhism is fascinating, in a scholarly way; the various braches and traditions and the way it often blended existing rituals and stories when it landed in a new place is genuinely fascinating to me. But anyone already familiar with the more cynical aspects of more common religions in the West wouldn't have to look very hard to find a Buddhist equivalent.
Well, yeah, this is the case with most religions. The people who possess wealth and power EARNED that. They DESERVE it because God/Karma/Whatever-Fake-Mechanism determined as much. So all the poors and homeless need to stop complaining about their stations in life because they also deserve the position they're in.
@@johnromero6315 indeed. The zoroastrian idea that the world is unjust and needs to be made just is an attractive one to me. (not that zoroastrians have always put this into practice)
Ive always have a question about religion in Thailand specially about Phra Phrom, the four faced monk-god, aka Brahma. Is he a part of the Buddhist tradition and what is your opinion about the tradition surrounding it?
On positive Orientalism specifically about Buddhism. I remember a conversation I had many years ago. We where talking about a fictitious religion in some fantasy game, and I said something to the effect of: "It's kinda like militant Buddhism" To which someone replied: "Well that is a contradiction in terms." Later in my life, learning more about Asian history, I have realized that militant Buddhism is very much a thing that have existed.
Militant Buddhism is not Buddhism in practice as it goes against the Teachings of the Buddha. As usual people justify their unwholesome actions by falsely attributing it a wrong view of Buddhism.
@@mattisvov yes correct as long as any religious text does not implies violence towards others or oneself in any kind. Or else an excuse will be used to do so. Bear in mind that not all religions are pacifist in nature. I only know of Jainism so far.
@@mattisvov Yeah if you commit violence as a Buddhist you are breaking the first and most fundamental teaching that the Buddha taught which was to not take the life of any human or animal.
This video is so useful. Every person I know has a romanticized view that Buddhism is a freewill 'philosophy' whereas Christianity is an authoritarian religion.
As a Buddhist, I agree. Buddhism is not a philosophy, we literally pray and believe in gods like Avalokitesvara and Tara. Even the most "atheistic" branch still follows scriptures that confirm the existence of spirits, demons and other worlds. We even believe in the devil, known as Mara
In Sri Lanka, we practice pure Theravada Buddhism almost for 2500 years and we don't only offer food and things to Buddhist monks but for the people who need those things. Who are starving, Who wants basic needs. We usually each and every full moon day go to temple and offer many offerings to Statues of Lord Buddha, Bodhi Tree and Dagobs then to Buddhist monks then after for the people who are at the temple. Usually every full moon day in Sri Lanka is a public holiday and Those days represent some of the most important moments in Buddhist History. We don't organize any kind of Ghost Festival or something. Once one of our family members or friend or someone like them dies we organize an offering ceremony at 7th day from the death and we offer food and things to buddhist monks and all the people who participate the event. Then we offer our credits which we have gained through the offering to ones who have passed away. Then those souls can reach a peaceful place in their next life with those credits if they were lack in credits.
I like the wider perspective on how practicing Buddhists interpret and think of hell. My reading of the Pali canon had me thinking of a hell I've been to - one that is a world constructed by our false understandings of the world run amok. Certainly not from the general entire canon, but certain parts of it painted hell in this way, as you briefly mention, of the mental projection hell, the created hell. As I read about it, I realized I was living in a layer of hell, and had been to some of the deeper layers as well. See, we don't see with our eyes, we see with our mind, we see a model of the world constructed in our heads. We see objects and spaces around us, we do not see the raw input of our eyes - this is why suppressing a small part of the brain that tells you that you are behind your eyes can create, reliably in the lab, out of body experiences where your perspective is from a place in the room not behind your eyes. We build a world model and then we make it transparent to our understanding of the world because a coherent sense of self is necessary to not appear crazy, if we saw through the illusion we'd be insane. Just as our visual input is constructed into a world model, so is our interactions with others and our larger behavioral understanding part of the brain, these images can be distorted by trauma, by addition, by lust for power, etc. Uncompassionate and mindless action creates feedbacks that pull our models of the world out of line with reality and create dark, painful distortions that, added enough on top of each other, build a complete and total hell. Extensive compassion for the self and others and mindful action can bring the model back in line with reality and bring you away from hell. And my understanding of the pali canon's interpretation on the death sequence is that all of this happens basically instantly at death to ressurect you into a new realm. I don't really jive with their interpretation on what's happening when a body dies but it's easy to go from the understanding of descending into a hellish or heavenly realm here on earth through strong mental control can translate through their interpretations of death to the larger idea of hell realms.
Not "we". But yes, some of the beings here on earth live through experiences similar to those in a hell realm at least temporarily. Primarily, hell may be a place, but it is also a state of mind.
And yet Frank Turek thinks many people convert from Christianity to Buddhism to not be held "accountable" for their sins and avoid a belief in hell LOOOOL shows how little most apologists know about world religions
The Tibetan game "Rebirth" shows virtually all of the Buddhist hells. A friend bought a copy in the 1970's and we spent many hours playing this in the military barracks.
It's always the military weirdos doing junk like this. Like who else has the opportunity to play games about Hell in military bases on different lands?
@@EmptyMan000 It was a reprieve from the other sorts of games on watch where we acted as score keepers for dress rehearsals for what was intended to be a very final game without a sequel.
Man, I never heard this term orientalism, but it makes a lot of sense. Loved that section. I'm gonna research more about it. Thanks for the great video!
I think one of the key components to solidify the positive orientalist vision of Dharma religions and specifically Budhism was Hesse's work (more clear on Sidharth, but visible on other works like Damian). Not that it was the first one, but it really captured a longing to look to "Eastern philosophy" as remedies for the crisis of self that postindustrial societies in the West were feeling and that is a reason why it probably resonated and was incredibly popular with both early 20th vanguardists, Nazis and Hippies (three groups apparently ideologically very diverse), which helped cristalize that distorted view in our culture subconscious and is very important now to actually counter it to properly understand the diversity inside all religions and religious movements. And as a philologist is also important to understand the shortcomings of the works in the literary cannon to properly place then in their historical and social context.
Haha yeah I've "heard " key word " heard" I do that alot when talking about life in general lmao! idk? If it's true or not though, but I don't know why they'd be lying lol!
Which really emphasizes how much of a shame it is that we're willing to judge, harm, and destroy each other over the details of how we all reach the same ultimate goal in life. Religions are like a path to that goal. There doesnt need to be one singular path, and no path is superior to the others, it's what works best with an individual's spirituality and community. We should appreciate and embrace that we ultimately want the same thing out of life. It should be okay if we take different paths as long as we achieve our goal; follow the Golden Rule, live a good life, and try to make life better for future generations.
This takes me back to early teens, watching Saint Seiya. Virgo Shaka had the power to send anyone to any Buddhist hell. The worst place he could send his enemies, though, was heaven, as any bad thought could send someone from there to some hell. He was also the first saint to learn how to go to hell without dying, like in those legends.
I was waiting for the first fellow latinamerican to mention saint Seiya. Authough I never understood why shaka mentioned heaven to be the worst. At least for us Catholics it was confusing.
And no, Yama is not the lord of hell. Yama is the personification of impermanence and death, a bit like the Grim Reaper. It's quite neutral in quality because pleasurable AND painful experiences both have to come to an end. Just we don't like the pleasurable experiences to end, while we want the painful ones to go away ASAP.
Since I first read about the Naraka hells I never stopped wondering how people came up with the astronomically high amount of years needed to burn out bad karma (rivaling the evaporation time of supermassive black holes).
The progenitor religion of Buddhism is Hinduism where ridiculous numbers are thrown around way too casually. I guess people in India liked big numbers because they seem incomprehensible to normal people?
I remember Bramha's single day is a hundred years of human life or something. Bramha has the same lifespan as the universe and will live for another 364 trillion years or something. Mind-boggling number of years for any human to fathom in reality even though we can all say it easily.
Yes it is. But if you didn't do anything morally incorrect ,despite being from any religion,you will be accepted in heaven. And the morals are logical. Since i am hindu i would have hard time explaining it. You can refer google 😄
@@Anish-IITP It is deliberately made impossible to both live and be moral at the same time because this most accurately reflects the chaos we inflict on reality.
in holy buddhist scriptures Buddha was mentioning hells and heavens as really existing realms, so whole asian tradition believe in existence of hells, because they mentioned by Buddha in Tripitaka (Tipitaka)
There are indeed some Buddhists who *don't* teach about heavens, hells, deities or even rebirth in a literal sense. However, these "secular" or "humanistic" versions of Buddhism are relatively new developments that can be traced to Western-style modernization movements in various Asian nations during the 19th and 20th centuries C.E.
The Lotus Sutra and the Tibetan book of the Dead are really good reads. The mystic law of cause and effect and karma. The Four Noble Truths-Suffering, Cause of Suffering, the path that leads to the end of suffering and the truth about the end of Suffering. The eight fold path- right view, right speech, right livelihood, right mindfulness, right resolve, right conduct, right effort and right Samandi which is the spiritual mediation the Buddhist monks do.
I was surprised that Buddhism has hells, not because I thought they was all peaceful and meditationy, but because I know rebirth is such a giant part of it and I guess I just only ever heard about the bare bones "you die and come back until you reach a state of enlightenment and move on from our current existence" and that your karma affects how, I guess a good word would be "pleasant" your next life is, as opposed to having that "balance" come from an outside force.
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The hell is similar in Islam like the molten lava and questions about how you didn't believe and how you ignored the signs of his
So its kinda like purgatory?
In catholic tradition you can pray for your ancestors in purgatory and help expedite thier entrance into heaven
Would it be a correct analysis to say hell here and by by extension other religions hell is a way to guilt trip people to foolow it?
Would it be a correct analysis to say hell here and by by extension other religions hell is a way to guilt trip people to foolow it?
Yama is a really interesting deity. He can be found in Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Dragon Ball Z.
And yu yu hakusho
ah the big five eastern religions
@@unholydoll1616 Last one is also huge in Latin America. I myself I'm a firm Dragon Ball Z-ist
Seriously? haha....?
@@unholydoll1616 yer name lol!
In Tibetan Buddhism hell is an extremely important topic which is expounded in a lot of stories. A lot of Westerners don't understand why Buddhism has hell realms at all since it is a religion based on the mind, but one of my teachers put it this way: You experience various forms of hell here on earth because of your mind, and it's the same way if you cling to desire when you die. Think of all the terrible thoughts that you can possibly have--These are the basis for all the possible hell realms you can experience after you die if you don't discover virtuous conduct.
thankkkk you a lot for the clarification !!
Where the soul swells in life, it shall pass to in death.
Having desire is what makes you human, to get rid of desire is to become a walking apathetic zombie
@@danielsparham Buddhism isn't getting rid of desire--It's conditioning yourself to not cling to your desires in order to make suffering decrease. Once you stop clinging to attachment and aversion, they both decrease overall.
@@danielsparham i understand. desires are indeed what give us motivation... but the idea is to have gratefulness be your default instead of desire. to understand that no matter what you desire you still already have everything you need or it is very much easy to get... without like putting others down to get it
I guess naraka/diyu/jigoku could be more accurately translated as purgatory, as their ultimate role is purification, not punishment. Growing up Buddhist I never dreaded the concept like some of my Christian friends do, it always felt like a "hey, don't be a bad person or your soul is going to go to this really sucky prison", not "your soul will burn for all eternity".
You sugar coting it your hells has is far more descriptive of the forms of punishment they have and no in many Abrahamic traditions you could be eventually saved from hell
Unfortunately your Christian friends are right, hell is forever
I grew up Catholic and from the video it looks like Catholicism is more similar to Buddhism than the protestant/evangelical versions of Christianity. Unlike evangelicals where only “grace” can save you, Catholicism is based on works. Good people go straight to heaven, the really evil unrepentant go to hell, but the majority end up in purgatory for cleansing. The length of the stay is determined by how many sins one has to cleanse and can be reduced by prayers of the living. The more the prayers the higher the discount. Paying to have mass and prayers said for the benefit of the soul of a passed love one used to be customary.
In Italy we also have our own story of Dante going to a tour of the underworld and back, with a detailed description of all the “amenities” there. It’s not scripture but it’s almost considered as such in popular religiosity.
same, never dreaded it
The eternity part is where they really hook you, and torture your mind and body in the now!
I've been a Buddhist since I was a kid, and anytime I was handed a Buddhism book about almost anything, I always try and find something that relates to the afterlife. And when I'm really lucky, I find a couple of pages filled with art of Neraka. It was pretty cool actually.
Can you recommend the names of some good books? I see it mentioned in alot of comments in Buddhist videos that the books have cool art. It doesn't have to be English books! I'd love to read some super old like 200 year old books even if I can't translate them it would be awesome to own something like that
@@pharaohsmagician8329 If you ever find any please do share
Preaching the Dharma of the Buddha It's like a lion snatching a prey.
@@pharaohsmagician8329 Me personally I found most of my Buddhist books from my school library, never bothered to remember the names tho 😅😅
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There's a reason why Yama is called the dharmaraya, the king of justice.
I am happy that the part about hell was never a shock for me, since I grew up in a Christian country with parents who taught me about hinduism and buddhism. Learning about hindu hell and buddhist hell as a child was surprisingly not that shocking. It was always explained to me that hell is temporary and also the consequence of our actions. I remember some of the punishments, but they all give a clear message: the pain you cause to others, and your vile thoughts ultimately hurts yourself, so it is better avoid hell in this life by doing your best to be a good person.
@@SiiNTi It depends whether they are willing to forgive you or not
@@SiiNTi If u truly feel remorse, then it does make a difference bcz feeling remorse is a suffering so, u are paying for your wrong doing & to make everything, the suffering go away u need to be kind & compassionate & for that u need to practice Dharma. ✌️
@@SiiNTi I think your feelings of guilt are already your "punishment" (karma isn't always physical, but also psychological). If you're genuinely willing to make up for the wrongs you've done, then the bad karmas you get will be less severe, and you may even accumulate some good karmas.
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@@kaldol2luckyif you remorse over something, sin stays singular. If you don’t, the same sim folds in hundreds. That’s what we believe in Tibetan Buddhism
A great video and I appreciated your segment on Orientalism. Our perception of Buddhism is painted by the hippie counterculture’s interpretation of Asian religions without really understanding the millennia long histories of these practices. It’s not talked about often enough and I appreciate you spoke about it.
I wonder if Eastern people similarly exotify western religion?
@@chendaforest My Japanese cousin told me goths in Japan we’re really into crosses because they heard Jesus came back from the dead. “Coming back from the dead” is not an unheard of story in Japanese religions and myths but for some reason when Jesus does it it’s kinda dark and mysterious.
@@DenisRicardo interesting...though thinking about it Christianity is an Asian religion by geographic origin anyway...
@@DenisRicardo I'm not into goth culture myself but ordinary peeps here in Japan know literally nothing about Christianity (or Buddhism FYI) and crosses are liberally used purely for cool factor in a lot of clothing brands targeting younger teens. Obviously, as they get older they become super cringe tho lol
@@chendaforest well judging by some animes for example Saint Seiya when one character is said to be Jesus, and Lucifer also appears in what of the movies. Or how there was a controversy in the West because one character in DBZ is called "Mr Satan" and fundies yell that it was satanic while asked its creators just though that Satan was the name of a Western demon and though it was like calling a character "Oni".
Great segment on positive Orientalism. Its a common problem I see when trying to find english resources on eastern religions. The book Orientalism is a little dated, but still a great introduction to the topic I'd highly recommend people read.
If you don't mind answering; how is it dated?
@@rasmusn.e.m1064 Its been a few years since I've read it so my memory is imperfect. I found Said prone to making overly sweeping statements that generalized entire fields of thought as low quality and based on what he called Orientalism. The fields he critiqued did (and still do) have serious issues of stereotyping and Orientalism I find he focused too narrowly on a small number of writers and framing it like they represent their entire fields.
Its still a great starting point and I highly recommend you read it. These critiques are not new and Said's latter writing and other post colonial writers do a great job of improving.
@@DianaCHewitt Ok, thank you for taking your time :) I'll go and check it out.
@@DianaCHewitt "Focused on a small number of writers and framed it like they represent their entire field" - this, I can't take claims of "orientalism" too seriously.
@@abominationdesolation8322 Orientalism is a very real thing and many writers do fall into the trap of uncritically believing stereotypes. Flawed criticism can still be useful. The fields of history, linguistics, and anthropology have made massive strides toward being less biased than during when Said first wrote the book and a small portion of that change was a product of his criticism.
Modern hippy-esque writers are very prone to Orientalism. Asia isn't some mystical land full of Buddhist harmony. Its a place filled with normal humans with normal human flaws.
As an asian buddhist, i have a lot of things want to say when seeing some misconception Western people often have. But the end of the day, returning to Buddha's teaching - there is no such thing wrong so that there is no such thing right. I'm very glad that you make a video about this aspect about Buddhism. Buddhism is special because it's very keeping with the goal of the seeker. If you look at Buddhism as a scholar, it can be controversial sometime, just like a loop - "oh Buddhism is more like Atheism. Oh Buddhism is more about supernatural....." . So yeah, history and theory of Buddhism is very intersting :vvv
I want to be a Buddhist do you know how I can start
Are you Vietnamese? Are Vietnamese communists Buddhist?
@@ana.eduard1493 South east Buddhism. Learn about 5 Thila and 10 things you should not do in Buddhism and goes from there.
There is sanskrit buddhism and chinese buddhism, both differ greatly. the former being mostly out of practice, the latter having more mysticism and dogma. the original buddha wasn't chinese afterall. probably why many are confused...
@@nogrammer You mean Theravada Buddhism. The language associated with Theravada Buddhism is Pali.
This is an excellent video! I myself belong to Vaidika Astika Dharma (Hindu) but I love reading about Nastikas (Buddhism, Ajivika, Ajnana, Carvaka and Jainism) too. We have shared entities with both philosophies. It's really hard to come by good material but you're one of the best channels I've come across so far!
Buddhism is neither astika nor nastika.
@@jayantkamble6082 Hinduism considers it to be something, because of it's nature as accepting diversity.
Will you cry about that? Buddha taught hindus, not buddhists.
Ajivika, Ajnana, Carvaka I haven't heard of these Dharmic sects before, what are they?
@@ikengaspirit3063 They are long forgotten communities of ancient India.
@@CountingStars333 maybe you don't know much about Buddhism in India
Current Hinduism is a blend of Buddhism, Jainism and many other religions.
May be you should know before Buddha became Buddha, he was the follower of Sanatan Dharma. He is also considered as 10th avatar of Lord Vishnu ( one of the Trinity god ).
Stories vary from region to region. People's from ancient times really respected each other's religion.
I still have statue of Buddha in my house
I feel that suffering is a very important, 'don't wanna skip it' part of life. 5 years in depression taught me countless lessons I'd never dare to regret.
Invite pain as much as you would/do its cousin, joy.
This was extremely well done! I really enjoyed this.
Oh Hi Derek 👋 Love you're channel.
Singaporean here, Haw Par Villa is a genuinely terrifying but also extremely enlightening place. You don’t just learn about various Chinese mythology, but also get a greater understanding of how they’ve been infused into Chinese culture and way of life.
It’s also said to be extremely haunted, but hey, that just adds to the atmosphere of the place.
How religious are Singaporens? I ask because it is a very developed country with, I believe, a strong social safefy net. Such countries tend to be very areligious, at least in the west.
@@chendaforest that’s a great question! The government here makes it a really strong point to build a society and culture where everyone respects everyone else. It’s not uncommon to have a Buddhist or Taoist temple 5 minutes away from a Christian church or a Muslim mosque. Children are also grouped into classrooms with a mix of races and religions as well, so they’re all exposed to different cultures from a young age.
Singapore also has a substantially ageing population too, so there’s still a majority of older people who are quite religious. That said, the vast majority of people here are of Chinese ethnicity, so Buddhism and Taoism are the two most common religions, followed by Christianity and Islam.
@@boomjykeo2 thanks Justin! Yes thats interesting, I admire a lot of things about Singapore. Taoism and Chinese folk religion are interesting, although I know very little about them.
@@boomjykeo2 how about the non-religious population in Singapore? How many of them are around?
@@TryinaD not too sure about what the actual numbers are, but a lot of the non-religious ones tend to from the younger population, such as late millennials like myself or Gen Z, etc.
The Hell Realms are honestly one of my favorite parts of Buddhism, and I think it sucks that so many people don't mention them. They are amazing fodder for good fiction writing, to say the least, and not talking about them removes so much depth and life from the religion.
Patala is more interesting to me. 😜
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patala
Well I would blame western media for that. They believe that only Christianity is supposed to have hell while other religions dont
@@Alienami does seem very interesting
Preaching the Dharma of the Buddha It's like a lion snatching a prey.
You're not scared of them being real?
I'm a Sri Lankan. Theravada Buddhist ... I watch all episodes which relate to Buddhism. I give honor to you BCS your videos talk about the most realistic Buddhism and actually what it is... I'm so impressed with your studies and understand about it. The due respect pls do an episode about Theravada Buddhism .... BCS is according to Buddha and my belief showing the path to real satisfaction and the end of suffering of humans is the most valuable help you can do to another human...Then you will be a "Kalyana Mithara" to many more intellectual humans seeking the ultimate truth... I may Bless you with Nobal Triple Jem to obtain " Nirwana " as soon as possible...
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I’m a Theravada Buddhist in the US, I appreciate him covering the part about the west’s view on things. I’ve run into a lot of people who are quite surprised when they discuss Buddhism with me and the subject turns to Buddhist Hell realms and how astonished they are. I get a lot of questions about the Dalai Lama and Kung fu as well, not a lot is known about Buddhism here and virtually nothing the different branches.
That Yama stuff makes sense on a level. I remember getting in trouble at school and being given the choice between a couple of days of boring in school suspension, or a couple of whacks with the paddle. The paddle was my choice most of the time.
Your point about "positive orientalism" is so, so important and I'm glad you brought it up. It really isn't harmless to the traditions it's applied to. That sort of "romanticizing" is the reason people look at traditional Buddhism as somehow corrupted compared to Westernized equivalents which are, in fact, further away from what the Buddha taught.
It isn't even romanticization in my opinion because it isn't necessarily making it look better in everyone's eyes, just forcing it to be more palatable to Western sensibilities.
I don't really agree with "further away from what the Buddha taught". The forms of Buddhism that are most similar to other religions are the ones that literally incorporate elements from other religions.
@@NovaSaber Yeah Buddhism is a very malleable and adaptable belief system, that’s part of what made it able to spread across so many different cultures.
@@NovaSaber Secularized Buddhism strips out core elements like reincarnation, the cosmology, devotional practice, and usually a large chunk of the ethics.
Acting like they're somehow practising something closer to the teachings of the historical Buddha because they never pray to folk deities alongside Buddhist ones is pretty ridiculous. They're engaging in more syncretism than any traditional Buddhist lineage by allowing another belief system to completely subsume the philosophical backdrop and principles of Buddhism instead of just adopting some higher level principals from elsewhere like other Buddhist lineages have.
Buddhism will change as it comes to the West, but secularization is not comparable to the changes Buddhism has gone through as it's spread throughout Asia. Elsewhere it was a change of emphasis, customs, aesthetics, and organizational structure with the core worldview and teachings staying in tact. Secularization replaces the fundamental worldview of Buddhism with one that the Buddha rejected.
I think it's great that atheists are interested in the Buddha's teachings, and it is great that they want to apply them to their lives. Zero issue with that at all. The problem comes when secularized Buddhist systems are treated as if they're somehow closer to "true Buddhism" which is ridiculous and harmful to traditional Buddhist communities.
I'm been a Buddhist for like 20 years, there's no need for a "westernize" version of Buddhism, if you go to any traditional school in the West like the many Tibetan schools, Zen, Pure Land etc. you will be thought the traditional doctrine. I was thought about the 10 hells very early on during the general meetings. Most Buddhist centers in the West are administered by Easterners who do not mellow down their religion. Now if you go to a hippie camp were no one has really study Buddhism is another matter. That why lineages are a thing in Buddhism.
@@lethemyrsmith2847 First, I disagree with the claim that common Western understanding of Buddhism doesn't still include rebirth.
Even if there are very many people who don't believe the rebirth part and actually call themselves "Buddhists" instead of just "Buddhist-influenced"or something, which I don't think is the case, I would still assume that they know that's part of the original version.
Second, the "cosmology" (which is no such thing) is NOT a core element, any more than creationism is to Christianity. It's just not. In fact, even outright non-theistic forms of Buddhism have been around for centuries.
Yes, I am from a buddhish family. When I was young I heard all about all kinds of hells and what kinds of torture they do. It was very scary. And there were books filled with detailed drawings of the hells too. For me the budhish worldview is actually really really scary as it seems to be a system that is designed to keep you surffering forever with the only way out being extremely unobtainable and paradoxical.
Actually, since the system is not made by a moral arbiter, it is extremely breakable with cheese strategies like a video game. Karma is more like a level and corruption system in an RPG than how it is usually shown. That explains why dumb karma like a dumb software is able to keep it up, why you don't lose sentience on entering a lower lifeform, why good and bad karma do not cancel, etc.
Karma is only really supposed to nudge you in the direction. The main reason for being good is just because you will reincarnate on Earth. Sure, technically it means you have no reason to directly care about present time people, except for the chaos it will start immediately and when they reincarnate. But it is only off by an infinitesimal percent.
The best example is a lot of the punishments in Hell actually come from the government being incredibly authoritarian, understandable as almost all animals, plants, fungi, and sapient beings there are evil and thus hard to trust.
Thus, any level up (good karma) that makes you get along better in an authoritarian regime has a high chance of making you immune to the punishment. E.g. not taking risks out of greed/pride, not being addicted to material desires so you can land yourself in trouble, a general trend to non-violence so no one retaliates, being trustworthy etc. Your personality does not completely reset when you reincarnate and your resting personality is especially not affected.
The kind of Buddhism I practice, the focus is on Pure Realms/Buddha Fields, taking the Bodhisattva Vow, and how to get to the Pure realm like Sukhavati. I've barely heard about the Hell Realms accept light descriptions of hungry ghosts and a little bit of "suffering the extremes of cold and heat" as a description for the hell realms. I've read several books, watched a lot of teachings, and none of them even mention the hell realms as it's believed if one has found the Dharma, begun the path of the Bodhisattva, and stick with it, then one will be able to be reborn in at least Amitabha's pure realm Sukhavati.
mmhmm, the other commenter's right
if you read the Mu Lien story there are a lot of ways to get out actually, but parts of it also depend if your family is willing to help or if rites are done accordingly
@@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana mmmmmm... cheese strategy.... *drools*
This was really interesting. Given the temporary nature of these hells, they almost seem like a more extreme version of purgatory in Catholicism.
Just that after Catholic purgatory, these ex sinners then go to heaven. Buddhist ex hell beings just re-enter the cycle of reincarnation according to other unspent karma and habits they still have.
Yes, I was a Catholic that converted to buddhism and have also noticed some similarities in that regard. The difference being that in buddhism no suffering is eternal.
Long list of things in common with “Mediterranean” Catholicism, including the journey to hell. Well, Dante’s Inferno is not scripture but still its depiction of hell and purgatory has left a mark in popular religiosity.
@@SrValeriolete nor is it in Christianity - if you actually read the scriptures. If you're interested in scripture in it's context (ANE) I'd recommend Michael Heiser's Naked Bible Podcast - episode 090 for the subject at hand. They are free and can be found by using your favorite search engine or on any major podcast platform. Cheers.
@@betrion7 It is in the roman catholic dogma, one of the reasons I left
I can't thank enough for this an amazing and informative video created by ReligionForBreakfast, I've learned tons of useful information by just watching you as well as giving recommendations to my all friends no matter what they believe, sceptical, believer, atheist.
As someone who grew up in Taiwan, all of these Buddhism stories are quite familiar to me, and I believe are rather commonly heard stories. Common curses in Chinese even mention 18 levels of hell. I don't think I am unaware of this, but it is interesting how westerners often don't think the concept exist in easterner cultures.
Chinese mythology borrowed some influence from Indian mythology through Buddhism. Some traces of Indian influence can also be detected in Korean culture and Japanese culture due to Buddhism.
But the influence of Hinduism never directly reached East Asia. While both Hinduism and Buddhism have strong influences in Southeast Asia. Many deities and gods in Thailand have their origins from Indian mythology for instances - Brahma, Garuda and Hanuman e.g.
@@jackjackyphantom8854 the way you said ‘borrowed’ is weird, I mean they adopted Buddhism, of course every knowledge they have to get from Buddhism. In Thailand, like many south east Asia, Brahma came, then later it’s Buddhism, we Thai people don’t actually call the religion as Hindu, we call it Brahm. Btw everybody know it’s from India, it’s taught in history.
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I assumed Chinese people were atheists.
Given that China illegally occupied a peaceful Buddhist nation, Tibet, destroying +6000 monasteries, killing innocent monks & nuns and the communist founder, Mao, calling religion a poison.
positive orientalism seems really commum among a lot of 'spiritual channels' here on youtube. very often i see them talking about the west as this horrible capitalist place where everybody is selfish and only care about consumerism, while the the east (specially India) is this incredible place, full of so called 'spiritual people'. Such a naive view is all over the place among so called 'spiritual teachers' here on youtube, and they are almost always western people, go figure. i guess they get disapointed with our society, and end up believing the east is somehow different, better.
Self hating whities brainwashed by leftist media.
I mean, the critiques against the west are definitely true, the "east" deals with a lot of the same problems unfortunately
Well, historically there are differences. The philosophies of Asia differ in nature from Western philosophies
@@maxion5109 yes, they are different, but these youtubers seems to think that in the east, ppl are better than western, they believe easterns are 'super spiritual' and actually take spirituality seriously contrary to western christians for example. that's a naive worldview.
@@compulsive_jaywalker1861 no. Eastern problems are very different and niche specific than western ones. Hence,the east is less developed.
I did not expect this video to be as interesting as it was, but you surprised me and I thank you for it! I learned a lot about mythology, Buddhism, and history.
It's very disappointing to find out that Buddhism uses hell the way the Abrahamic religions do, to frighten people into following it.
One of my teachers made me read Geshe Lhundub Sopa's descriptions of the hells from his commentary on the great treatise and the vivid descriptions really had the intended effect on me, I couldn't eat for a while afterward but came out of it with a renewed dedication to good action xD
Your videos are incredible. Your scholarly lens is refreshing and it’s nice to see someone working to unravel biases :)
Thank you for your contribution 🙏
Thanks!
I always have a better day when there’s a new RBF video!
Dante walks into the room: I have written the greatest description of hell!
Sees Hell realms
Dante: I'll come back later.
"Dramatic reenactment " 😆 I could only imagine the production budget just for that clip.
On a serious note, I appreciate your videos. They lend to my practice of learning something new everyday.
well I just found my new favourite religion channel, so informative and unbiased. just fricking great. so impressive.
I just wanna say RFB is my absolute favorite. I've been interested in anthropology of religion for 25 years and your stuff is amazing, always gets me researching/reading further. My partner is always like 'are you watching the Religion For Breakfast guy again?' Yup. Thanks so much for your videos!
You should create a video about how Hinduism and the early relationship with Buddhism. And how religion from South and East Asia interact and evolve around each other.
Hmmm ... cool bruh.
I'd love this! I once read that there are some sects of Hinduism that see the Buddha as some sort of prophet.
@@matheussantana2390
Vaishnavas sects believe in Buddha as avatar of Vishnu just like Krishna and Rama
@@matheussantana2390 Buddha is believed to be the 9th(second last) Avatar of Vishnu. The 10th one is still awaited(it'll be there at the end of Kalyug)
@@matheussantana2390 There's no evidence of strife among eastern religions. We have never had an idea of a monopoly on God. Heck, many don't even have gods. Ashoka, India's most fearless venerated warrior was Buddhist, not Hindu.
The story of Mulian sounds similar to Dante's Inferno (A living person going to see what Hell is like)
it's a very common type of story. Ancient greece, rome, japan, judaism and india all have stories about people going to hell to save a loved one and returning without their loved one
The Journey To The West has a similar plot arc as well, where a King tours hell, although that one was undoubtedly inspired by the traditions discussed here since the author was very very Buddhist.
Or the Greek myth of Orpheus.
I would imagine that the theme of "Mortal goes on journey and bears witness to the other realms" is one of those themes that occurs mythology a lot.
@@NovaSaber As far as I know the story of Orpheus and Eurydice directly influenced Divine Comedy
I was visiting a temple in Japan once, I think it was outside Hiroshima, that had dioramas of hell in a small cave system under the main building. I remember thinking it was odd at the time - especially given that I was more familiar with a subterranean hell being a Christian motif. But now it makes so much sense! Thank you
The underworld, Hades or Hell, is where the dead go according to many religions like Greek and Egyptian state religions. Even the Bible (Christian or otherwise) indicates that even saints and prophets went to Hell. In Christianity, Jesus descended to Hell first so he could free the patriarchs like Abraham from the higher levels (which were very utopian compared to the lower realms).
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That story of Mulian really reminds me of Dante's Inferno where a man travels through hell (and later through purgatory and heaven) to save his friend from eternal damnation. The funny thing about Dante's Inferno is that a lot about the way how hell is portrayed in western culture, media and modern day christianity is based on Dante's description of hell in his book Inferno, despite it not actually being Biblical canon. Inferno is quite literally christian fan-fiction from the 13th century. But Dante's vision of hell has nonetheless been used by the Catholic Church to scare people who disobeyed the church and is still commonly used in christian communities to scare non-believers or other christians, eventhough Dante's description is not actually in the Bible or even biblical canon. Sure, just like in the Bible, Dante's hell is a world of eternal torment, punishment and suffering. But the Bible does not describe hell in as much detail as Dante did and so this vision that we have when we in the western world think of hell is actually not in line with what Biblical hell actually looks like.
It's the same with angels. Yes the Bible talks about angels being messengers and servants of God. But they're not winged humans with superpowers like how they are usually portrayed in art and modern media. They are more like very powerful spirits. Have you ever noticed in the Bible that whenever an angel speaks to a person, they say something along the lines of "Don't be scared"? That's because the way which angels in the Bible actually look is pretty terrifying. Instead of being winged humans with superpowers, they actually look like a giant ball of turning rings with hundreds of eyes and on it. Look up "biblical accurate angel" on Google and you'll see what I mean. No wonder people were scared and these angels had to calm down these people, they're super scary
Dante was not trying to save his guide Vergil,Vergil was an ancient Roman pagan poet and as a pagan could not be saved but was in Limbo -an in between area with no pain but no joys either.A lot of the details in the "Inferno" are taken from Greek and Roman mythology where the idea of a hell with fire and torments probably came from-but hell is mentioned in the New Testament -make no bones about it but there is no detailed description of it -this came later in late
antiquity
when church fathers and Christian saints and mystics went to town on describing the torments in detail
The thing about “turning rings” with eyes shouldn’t be taken as 100% accurate either. Angels can come in many forms. They can come as a “human” in the form of a homeless visitor needing shelter, or winged people, or turning rings. It’s good for a meme but they’re not consistently described that way in the Bible either.
That's what you get if you took everything in the Bible literally.
Some angels are said to be beautiful, and some, the cherubim, were supposed to have four faces (lion, ox, eagle, and human) as well as many eyes and fire, as well as having many wings. There are actually only 4 flaming wheel eye angels, because those angels carry a chariot. Then there’s the 6-winged seraphim who are human-like and perpetually singing.
@@darkstarr984 Those four faces are also the symbolic visualizations of the four evangelical writers: Marcus (lion), Luke (ox), John (eagle) and Matthew (human)
I am a Thai and consider myself a Buddhist. I agree with what you said about positive orientalism mentioned in the video. Totally agreed 👍
ในคลิปนี้เขาพูดอย่างไรบ้างครับพี่ พูดไปในแนวทางไหนครับ
@@rastafah2263 เขาพูดถึงประเด็นที่ว่า ในตะวันตก มักมองแต่ด้านดีของศาสนาและวัฒนธรรมจากทางฝั่งเอเชียครับ เช่นการมองศาสนาพุทธในเชิงปรัชญามากกว่าศาสนา และมองว่าอะไรที่ไม่ดี หรือไม่มีในวัฒนธรรมตะวันตก ทางฝั่งเอเชีย เช่นศาสนาพุทธ มีทางออกให้หมดแล้ว เช่น กาลามาสูตร 10 ศาสนาพุทธในทางปฎิบัติหรือโดยคอนเซป ไม่มีเรื่องงมงายเลย
โดยที่ไม่รู้ว่าคัมภีศาสนาพุทธก็มีการพูดถึงนรก โลกหลังความตายอย่างละเอียด รวมถึงในรายละเอียดและการประยุกย์ใช้ในสังคม ก็มีหลายเรื่องที่อาศัยศรัทธาเป็นหลักคล้ายกับศาสนาอื่นๆ ในทางตะวันตกครับ
Also one thing about buddhism as well is conversion. While it doesn’t go around like monotheistic religions promoting itself. It does have conversion, because someone who claims to be a buddhist, vs someone who took refuge in the three jewels and have a master is very different. So many people don’t consider it to be a religion because there is no creator, but we do worship some deities, and pay homage to the buddha. Buddha didn’t say those were not real or wrong, he just simply stated that worshiping gods and deities would not aid in anything when it comes to reaching enlightenment. Hope that helps!! Peace everyone!! 📿🙏🏼
It doesn't just not aid, it is frequently wholly counter-intuitive and spins for yourself a fake world for you to find enlightenment in. You basically set up another obstacle for yourself to overcome except it's one you'll find very hard to notice is even there.
@@dopaminecloud yeah, in my personal view of the buddha, I worship his qualities, what makes him a buddha. But on the personal view he is my teacher rather than a god. For a god is our lord who we have to obey versus a teacher who gently guides your way but still let you choose what to do. I totally agree with you, everything we do in this world is simply Illusion.
@@roberttran435 it’s all good until you worship Buddha himself, he stated that he didn’t want that at all
Preaching the Dharma of the Buddha It's like a lion snatching a prey.
Not Just in Buddhism most of the asian religions don't believe in promoting itself forcefully. Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Jain, Tao etc
The fruit ninja bit really got me. Segments like that are what really make these lectures memorable
In the West, many people were introduced to Buddhism by the actor Richard Gere. It’s important, especially if you are just becoming aware of Buddhist teachings, that you know this was a specific form of Buddhism as was practiced in Tibet. Buddhism is so much more than that.
westerners interested to know buddhism way before him
In India Buddhism is very different from the west. Hindus and Buddhists get along best unlike abrahamos
ALL major Versions of Buddhism have multiple Hells
Nope, every Buddhist canon contains the accounts of hells in them.
Shinryu Suzuki is the founder of Buddhism in America. Focused on Zen Buddhism, which fits well with the logical scientific minds in the west.
In Buddhism you should focus on the 3 studies: precepts, meditation and cultivating wisdom. A lot of people in North America sees only meditation, which is not what Buddhism is all about. I now realize that orientalism is a big contributor to that...
Brutal stuff! Thanks for the info. Very concisely delivered.
Thank you for all of your hard work on these videos. I really enjoy your content, truly.
Wow, it surprises me how brainwashed I was as a kid by Orientalism and it's variants growing up. This was really eye opening!
The main issue is pragmatism, which a lot of the Eastern faiths incorporate. Obviously, a place where all the animals, plants, fungi, and sapient beings are animated by evil souls will likely be terrible. Unless you are very scrappy.
Also, some dogs live there, presumably because they are naturally pain resistant they barely notice where they are. Also a bunch of creatures from higher plains, who apparently ended up there for some reason or another. Maybe they were running from an army.
Really sheds a new light on the karate kid
@@TomorrowWeLive I don't think anyone with a Fascist symbol as their profile picture is in a position to claim that they value learning about other cultures. Your ideology is probably the greatest expression of orientalism there is, treating anything and anyone outside your definition of 'the west' as sub-human
@@TomorrowWeLive The reverse, when people misrepresent Western culture, is called Occidentalism. So it’s not as if people using these terms believe *white people* are all ignorant of all cultures while the rest of humanity isn’t. Westeners are just much likelier to be orientalists than be occidentalists and misrepresent themselves, that’s why you mostly hear about the former.
@@TomorrowWeLive no I think comes down to the historical context of imperialism and living in a post modern world. Generally people are ignorant even of their religion. More often than not it was the general public would claim thier neighbor was a witch and try to get them killed more than not the inquisitors need to step in because they were aware people were very superstitious. This is that but for the modern day and because the west has secularised so much they sought superstitions elsewhere
I'd love to see some videos on the "positive Orientalism" thing. Like, was Kerouac just responding to the presentation of Buddhism given by, e.g., Suzuki? His presentation really seems very compatible with Kerouac's depiction.
Great video! Definitely one of my favorites yet.
SO glad you mention Orientalism here! I always find it an annoying obstacle of Western discussions about Buddhism but you handled it really gracefully :))
Wonderful. I had been involved in Buddhism for a while before I got into the descriptions of the hot and cold hells and I was more than a little disturbed in the description.
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The enactments of naraka is also extremely common in Sri Lanka as well. Local temples often have very dramatic representations of hell and sometimes during poya days, local public places especially like schools will construct temporary naraka (or apayas as we call it here) where you can walk in and see each level of naraka as you progress. It's quite similar to an amusement park haunted house ride lol.
Anyway, great job covering Buddhism as usual. Just wish that you will give Sri Lanka a more prominent place when discussing about buddha dharama.
Tbh… I assumed Chinese people were atheists. I see some Chinese people calling themselves Buddhist.
Given that China illegally occupied a peaceful Buddhist nation, Tibet, destroying +6000 monasteries, killing innocent monks & nuns and the communist founder, Mao, calling religion a poison.
Chinese people being a Buddhist is questionable
as a westerner who grew up entirely in the east, orientalism is real, and almost always "positive" orientalism, me and every local just roll our eyes at those hipster "travelers" who come for enlightenment
Enlightenment starts from within. hat's what those bourgeois entitled moronic tourists never understand. They just want to feel special because they are deeply not in their own lands which is why they will never be enlightened.
Great video.....as a Theravada Buddhist from south asia, I found a lot of stereotypical image of buddhism in America (they think all kinds of weird things about buddhism).....but thanks for shedding light on this matter.
BTW, we actualy have 8 majon Niraya(Hell), Tiryaka(Animal) loka, Manussa(Human) loka, Asura(devil) loka, 6 Sagga(Heavens) loka,16 rupa(form) Brahma loka and 4 arupa(forless) Brahma loka.......yes buddhism is rich in mythology......
What scares me is the specificity of the length of time one must stay in a Naraka. Some for hundreds of millions of years. 2.5×10^21 in some cases!
The amount of time to empty a barrel of seeds if you took out one seed every 100 years. Somehow that’s more terrifying to me than the vagueness of forever.
Thank you for making this video and raising the awareness on Buddhist cosmology. There are hells and havens, miracles, magic and all sorts of things. What is really fascinating is how these all tie together with the mindfulness and self-discovery parts of Buddhism that is popular in the west. Once you understand Buddhist phenomenology and psychology there is the understanding that there has to be hell realms. It is not removed from mindfulness at all.
I learned about Buddhist hells as a kid thanks to Shaka from Saint Seiya (Caballeros del Zodiaco). Funny enough, you could compare Western Orientalism with how that show uses Greek mythology.
@mlovecraftr
Hell yeah! Saint Seiya is awesome.
Great episode though I understand that the length of time in these Hells is far longer than "hundreds of thousands of years". I think they start at 1.6x10¹² years and multiply by 8 for each level up to 3x10¹⁸. Not an insignificant amount of time!
By way of comparison, the lowest level works out (if I've done my sums right) at over 100 times the age of the universe.
There's some debate among Buddhists (I'm Buddhist) to what exactly is the time in hells, there's no a exact amount you can pin and some translations are also faulty, in any case the average consideration is that in reality the number given just mean "a lot" or "incontable" like the number 8 million in Japanese. Should not be taken literally specially because it depends on translation.
This belief is one hell of a motivation to be in line, cthu. I would be the best-behaving person if i believed in karmic justice. Maybe we should teach unruly people this.
The deepest hell is called in Buddhism. Vajra black hole hell.
@@user-Void-Star what exactly is that?
Thank you for this wonderful video. It was amazing to watch someone explain our realigion in such a good way. I can now just send this to my friends when they ask me
Great video! First of all, I'm a huge fan of your content. Second, I love this video in particular because I actually did my MPhil thesis on the depiction of hell in Buddhist Art, which I submitted a year ago. Again, great video and lots of love from Puerto Rico!
This type of torment would so deeply traumatize any soul that they would be affected in all future incarnations and would never develop spiritually.
Amazing video as always
Tack!
I appreciate how you explore/explain all mythologies equally.
Glad you brought up the orientalist view of Buddhism! It’s not a monolith and there’s sects like pure land, that completely differs from the stereotypical view of Buddhism in the west. If you haven’t done so already, please talk about pure land buddhism!
Edit: nevermind, you have!!
Funny thing is, when westerners came to Japan and discovered Pure Land Buddhism, they actually believed that it was an offshoot of Protestantism.
"...their work portrays American culture as strict and uptight, and Asian culture as focused on freewheeling journeys of self-discovery."
That seems so contrary to everything I've ever learned about Asian culture that it baffles me as to where they got these notions. When I think of strict and uptight cultures, the first things that come to mind are the cram schools, tiger moms and karoshi (death by overwork) of East Asia.
The stereotype of "freewheeling journeys of self-discovery" in relation to Asian cultures is rooted in the gurus, sadhus and monks you find meditating in the Himalayas or across other parts of Asia and those who partake in Eastern religions. Not to mention the Asian wellness practices like yoga and mindfulness.
Thats a really sick message at the end
0:05 Those are manifestly *NOT* nails.
A fun passage about Avici hell (from the Niddesa, translation mine; the Avici hell is basically a giant oven):
They run to the east, and from there to the west;
The run to the north, and from there to the south;
Everywhere they run, the doors are shut,
The want to go forth, they seek for release.
They can’t go forth from there; they obtain this by means of kamma,
For those evildoers, their abundant kamma is not yet fully ripe.
Where did this terror, suffering, and sorrow arise? It arises from his love, happiness, greed, joy and greed.
Sounds like a nice place!
Though such a disturbing topic, this video really made me respect Buddhism a lot more than I use to
If you are an East Asian kid, this is your childhood.🥶🥵😍
Yer name haha, ...man I watched the whole thing, but my desire to read comments and yt names was unfortunately probably distracting me haha, but I did find the whole thing fascinating still, haha if you know what I mean? just wish I would have gave it a better listen. So yer saying yer child hood would been a path of self discovery? Or did I just not listen? lol!
I am South Asian so I understand some of it but not all.
Also South Asian Buddhist and Southeast Asian Buddhist too
Or, one Hell. The one we make for ourselves. Little known to most is the heavens and hells in Buddhism are both another place and your internally created existence. You can see it either way: which ever will allow you to see reality for what it is. *As example in the Tibetan book of Liberation in the between states(Bardo Thodol/book of the dead) - it clearly explains these demons that we are tormented by: are mind born. They are real, both to us and in their effect, but they are not real in the sense we consider it. They are manifestations of aspects of experience, personality, attachment... Like the shadow to Jung.
*Kṣitigarbha's name shows this truth - it means the storehouse of our potential perfected nature(See Buddhism as an early Trauma treatment).
Your take is referenced in the video
@@alohm Storehouses, as explained by my lama, are generally used within the context of the school of Yogacara, or mind only. While I notice my lineage (Karma Kagyu) tends to emphasize Madhyamaka (middle way of Nagarjuna), I agree with the potentiality of ourselves making our own hells or even ones we can be unfortunately born with/into. This is Sakyamuni's Pure Realm and we only have to recognise it. It also brings to mind the Short Vajradhara Prayer and the line "Bless me to know Samara and Nirvana are not two." Though I feel the extremes of Yogacara in my experience, as with its description of emptiness, that passive nihilism can be born.
@@roxyamused Gharba is Sanskrit for womb which is often translated as treasury or storehouse ;) but you are correct that the storehouse(consciousness or self) alaya is the store of the self. Another context in this case.
One of the best channels on RUclips. Excellent work!
This was a fantastic video and I love how you brought how our bias skews our perception and it really made me rethink how I view other religions. Thank you so much for making this video!
afternoon, here got latest zen buddhist story. "How to deal with toxic people at your workplace" ruclips.net/video/f4XU2yEZMRk/видео.html
As a Buddhist THIS GIVES ME HAPPINESS
Leave this foolish thing you call your religion
What do you think of the Lord Jesus Christ ? Here is what he says about hell.
*Gospel of St. Luke*
*Chapter 13*
*The Narrow Door*
22 Then Jesus traveled throughout the towns and villages, teaching as He made His way toward Jerusalem. 23“Lord,” someone asked Him, “will only a few people be saved?”
Jesus answered, 24“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. 25After the master of the house gets up and shuts the door, you will stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’
But he will reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’
26Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’
27And he will answer, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers.’
28There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves are thrown out. 29People will come from east and west and north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God. 30And indeed, some who are last will be first, and some who are first will be last.”
@@VirginMostPowerfull Buddhism has existed 500 years before Jesus was even born. What did the Buddhists back then feel about Jesus before he even existed? Can someone quote some meaningless text back then? Lol
@@VirginMostPowerfull both of you are wrong. islam is the last religion,with the last message and messenger
@@yuhanzhang2882 I just asked a question, what's your problem ?
Buddhism existing before doesn't prohibit him from answering.
Besides, if you really want to do this then I suggest you look up the video "God in ancient China" to learn something new and hopefully humbling.
As an 'officially' Budhist who grew up in Budhist country(Thailand), I can tell you that Budhism is very pro-capitalist based on the idea that someone's wealth and 'Birthright' are the results of their Past-life Karma. This made me realized the 'Past-life Karma' might have always been a subliminal message to support wealth inequality.
In Thailand, budhism is very consumerism friendly. Our Budhist monks are among the richest group of people in the country.
And Thailand is not 'serene' per-say. Our people are quite wild from time to time. :D
Love your video. I learnt more about Budhism in other countries here than schools even teached me.
Thailand is also pretty damned liberal with its death penalty, which I've seen monks themselves advocate for, since the victim will just be reincarnated and given another chance anyway. I've also seen men in saffron robes and Nike sneakers smoking cigarettes.
I think Buddhism is fascinating, in a scholarly way; the various braches and traditions and the way it often blended existing rituals and stories when it landed in a new place is genuinely fascinating to me. But anyone already familiar with the more cynical aspects of more common religions in the West wouldn't have to look very hard to find a Buddhist equivalent.
Yes this is a problem with karma, it promotes the just-world fallacy.
Well, yeah, this is the case with most religions. The people who possess wealth and power EARNED that. They DESERVE it because God/Karma/Whatever-Fake-Mechanism determined as much. So all the poors and homeless need to stop complaining about their stations in life because they also deserve the position they're in.
@@johnromero6315 indeed. The zoroastrian idea that the world is unjust and needs to be made just is an attractive one to me. (not that zoroastrians have always put this into practice)
Ive always have a question about religion in Thailand specially about Phra Phrom, the four faced monk-god, aka Brahma. Is he a part of the Buddhist tradition and what is your opinion about the tradition surrounding it?
On positive Orientalism specifically about Buddhism.
I remember a conversation I had many years ago. We where talking about a fictitious religion in some fantasy game, and I said something to the effect of:
"It's kinda like militant Buddhism"
To which someone replied:
"Well that is a contradiction in terms."
Later in my life, learning more about Asian history, I have realized that militant Buddhism is very much a thing that have existed.
Militant Buddhism is not Buddhism in practice as it goes against the Teachings of the Buddha. As usual people justify their unwholesome actions by falsely attributing it a wrong view of Buddhism.
@@eseetoh I guess the same thing could be said for militant Christianity.
@@mattisvov yes correct as long as any religious text does not implies violence towards others or oneself in any kind. Or else an excuse will be used to do so.
Bear in mind that not all religions are pacifist in nature. I only know of Jainism so far.
@@mattisvov Yeah if you commit violence as a Buddhist you are breaking the first and most fundamental teaching that the Buddha taught which was to not take the life of any human or animal.
It still exists. Just look at the very late Rohingya genocide.
This video is so useful. Every person I know has a romanticized view that Buddhism is a freewill 'philosophy' whereas Christianity is an authoritarian religion.
As a Buddhist, I agree. Buddhism is not a philosophy, we literally pray and believe in gods like Avalokitesvara and Tara. Even the most "atheistic" branch still follows scriptures that confirm the existence of spirits, demons and other worlds. We even believe in the devil, known as Mara
In Sri Lanka, we practice pure Theravada Buddhism almost for 2500 years and we don't only offer food and things to Buddhist monks but for the people who need those things. Who are starving, Who wants basic needs. We usually each and every full moon day go to temple and offer many offerings to Statues of Lord Buddha, Bodhi Tree and Dagobs then to Buddhist monks then after for the people who are at the temple. Usually every full moon day in Sri Lanka is a public holiday and Those days represent some of the most important moments in Buddhist History. We don't organize any kind of Ghost Festival or something. Once one of our family members or friend or someone like them dies we organize an offering ceremony at 7th day from the death and we offer food and things to buddhist monks and all the people who participate the event. Then we offer our credits which we have gained through the offering to ones who have passed away. Then those souls can reach a peaceful place in their next life with those credits if they were lack in credits.
I like the wider perspective on how practicing Buddhists interpret and think of hell. My reading of the Pali canon had me thinking of a hell I've been to - one that is a world constructed by our false understandings of the world run amok. Certainly not from the general entire canon, but certain parts of it painted hell in this way, as you briefly mention, of the mental projection hell, the created hell.
As I read about it, I realized I was living in a layer of hell, and had been to some of the deeper layers as well. See, we don't see with our eyes, we see with our mind, we see a model of the world constructed in our heads. We see objects and spaces around us, we do not see the raw input of our eyes - this is why suppressing a small part of the brain that tells you that you are behind your eyes can create, reliably in the lab, out of body experiences where your perspective is from a place in the room not behind your eyes. We build a world model and then we make it transparent to our understanding of the world because a coherent sense of self is necessary to not appear crazy, if we saw through the illusion we'd be insane.
Just as our visual input is constructed into a world model, so is our interactions with others and our larger behavioral understanding part of the brain, these images can be distorted by trauma, by addition, by lust for power, etc. Uncompassionate and mindless action creates feedbacks that pull our models of the world out of line with reality and create dark, painful distortions that, added enough on top of each other, build a complete and total hell. Extensive compassion for the self and others and mindful action can bring the model back in line with reality and bring you away from hell.
And my understanding of the pali canon's interpretation on the death sequence is that all of this happens basically instantly at death to ressurect you into a new realm. I don't really jive with their interpretation on what's happening when a body dies but it's easy to go from the understanding of descending into a hellish or heavenly realm here on earth through strong mental control can translate through their interpretations of death to the larger idea of hell realms.
"Buddhism Has a Lot of Hells"
Are we in one of them?
close, we're in america
Not "we". But yes, some of the beings here on earth live through experiences similar to those in a hell realm at least temporarily. Primarily, hell may be a place, but it is also a state of mind.
@@aubreylear Bold assumption
@@aubreylear Search up Duranda district Ózd Hungary European Union. That's the bottom of Catholic Protestant Buddhist and Jewish hell.
Technically we're in Sakyamuni's Pure Realm, but it's in the mind of the beholder.
And yet Frank Turek thinks many people convert from Christianity to Buddhism to not be held "accountable" for their sins and avoid a belief in hell LOOOOL shows how little most apologists know about world religions
Indeed, seems hardcore atheism loses the chance of understanding religion literature
Perturbing, but interesting, especially the idea that punished souls eventually are reborn in a nicer realm, redeemed.
I could watch these videos all day. I love learning about different spiritual and religious views of the afterlife.
“What does it say?”
“Hell of Boiling Oil”
“Really?”
“Just kidding, it says keep out.”
The Tibetan game "Rebirth" shows virtually all of the Buddhist hells. A friend bought a copy in the 1970's and we spent many hours playing this in the military barracks.
And I thought the game Life was bad.
It's always the military weirdos doing junk like this. Like who else has the opportunity to play games about Hell in military bases on different lands?
@@EmptyMan000 It was a reprieve from the other sorts of games on watch where we acted as score keepers for dress rehearsals for what was intended to be a very final game without a sequel.
Man, I never heard this term orientalism, but it makes a lot of sense. Loved that section. I'm gonna research more about it. Thanks for the great video!
I think one of the key components to solidify the positive orientalist vision of Dharma religions and specifically Budhism was Hesse's work (more clear on Sidharth, but visible on other works like Damian). Not that it was the first one, but it really captured a longing to look to "Eastern philosophy" as remedies for the crisis of self that postindustrial societies in the West were feeling and that is a reason why it probably resonated and was incredibly popular with both early 20th vanguardists, Nazis and Hippies (three groups apparently ideologically very diverse), which helped cristalize that distorted view in our culture subconscious and is very important now to actually counter it to properly understand the diversity inside all religions and religious movements.
And as a philologist is also important to understand the shortcomings of the works in the literary cannon to properly place then in their historical and social context.
Man, what a spectacular and professional analysis. Thank you
Thanks for the info. Wish more knew this. Know you weren't trying to be funny but when u break this down makes me chuckle.
Haha yeah I've "heard " key word " heard" I do that alot when talking about life in general lmao! idk? If it's true or not though, but I don't know why they'd be lying lol!
very interesting the similarities that some religions have
Which really emphasizes how much of a shame it is that we're willing to judge, harm, and destroy each other over the details of how we all reach the same ultimate goal in life. Religions are like a path to that goal. There doesnt need to be one singular path, and no path is superior to the others, it's what works best with an individual's spirituality and community. We should appreciate and embrace that we ultimately want the same thing out of life. It should be okay if we take different paths as long as we achieve our goal; follow the Golden Rule, live a good life, and try to make life better for future generations.
So there is a hell where you get transported into a Fruit Ninja game but you are the fruit being sliced...
Great job. The story of Mulian is one of my favorites.
This was informative, thank you for making and sharing this.
This takes me back to early teens, watching Saint Seiya. Virgo Shaka had the power to send anyone to any Buddhist hell. The worst place he could send his enemies, though, was heaven, as any bad thought could send someone from there to some hell. He was also the first saint to learn how to go to hell without dying, like in those legends.
The hell of the gaki / preta is so Shin Megami Tensei, lol.
I was waiting for the first fellow latinamerican to mention saint Seiya. Authough I never understood why shaka mentioned heaven to be the worst. At least for us Catholics it was confusing.
And no, Yama is not the lord of hell. Yama is the personification of impermanence and death, a bit like the Grim Reaper. It's quite neutral in quality because pleasurable AND painful experiences both have to come to an end. Just we don't like the pleasurable experiences to end, while we want the painful ones to go away ASAP.
Since I first read about the Naraka hells I never stopped wondering how people came up with the astronomically high amount of years needed to burn out bad karma (rivaling the evaporation time of supermassive black holes).
The progenitor religion of Buddhism is Hinduism where ridiculous numbers are thrown around way too casually. I guess people in India liked big numbers because they seem incomprehensible to normal people?
I remember Bramha's single day is a hundred years of human life or something. Bramha has the same lifespan as the universe and will live for another 364 trillion years or something. Mind-boggling number of years for any human to fathom in reality even though we can all say it easily.
Could do now a video about the 24 Buddhist Heaven realms, the 6 Desire Heavens and the 18 Form Heavens?
This is the video that made me subscribe. Thanks!
"I love Buddhism, it's so peaceful"
Buddhism:
Yes it is. But if you didn't do anything morally incorrect ,despite being from any religion,you will be accepted in heaven. And the morals are logical. Since i am hindu i would have hard time explaining it. You can refer google 😄
wE aRe RiGhT tHeY aRe wRoNg - Abrahamic religions
@@Anish-IITP It is deliberately made impossible to both live and be moral at the same time because this most accurately reflects the chaos we inflict on reality.
@@Anish-IITP Who decides what is moral or not? Some dude who lived thousands of years ago?
@@dominicj7977 comman sense decides. a person brainwashed into a cult cant decide it
This was a very interesting topic. I thought Buddhists didn't believe in hell, but there are many versions of Buddhism in Asia.
in holy buddhist scriptures Buddha was mentioning hells and heavens as really existing realms, so whole asian tradition believe in existence of hells, because they mentioned by Buddha in Tripitaka (Tipitaka)
All buddhist schools believe in the existance of hell realms.
Every version of Buddhism has hells, to be clear.
Westerns like you have...... Fetishist understand of no western cultures that's why
There are indeed some Buddhists who *don't* teach about heavens, hells, deities or even rebirth in a literal sense. However, these "secular" or "humanistic" versions of Buddhism are relatively new developments that can be traced to Western-style modernization movements in various Asian nations during the 19th and 20th centuries C.E.
I’m a Buddhist Sri Lankan My Mum Told me Yama 🇱🇰☸️❤️🇳🇵
The Lotus Sutra and the Tibetan book of the Dead are really good reads. The mystic law of cause and effect and karma. The Four Noble Truths-Suffering, Cause of Suffering, the path that leads to the end of suffering and the truth about the end of Suffering. The eight fold path- right view, right speech, right livelihood, right mindfulness, right resolve, right conduct, right effort and right Samandi which is the spiritual mediation the Buddhist monks do.
I was surprised that Buddhism has hells, not because I thought they was all peaceful and meditationy, but because I know rebirth is such a giant part of it and I guess I just only ever heard about the bare bones "you die and come back until you reach a state of enlightenment and move on from our current existence" and that your karma affects how, I guess a good word would be "pleasant" your next life is, as opposed to having that "balance" come from an outside force.