Do Buddhists believe in a hell.?

Answer 1

Hell is a concept of the Middle East. Buddists believe that we are in a relm of illusions, meditation is training of the mind to see past the illusions. Our self made illusions can become what we would call our personal "hell." To illustrate; three people are in the same room, one person is asleep having a nightmare, another is asleep in a pleasant dream, the other awake. The Buddist (the person who's awake) would wake both people, why? because both dreamers are in a world of illusions. The enlightened beings are represented by the awake person seeing reality for what it is, the sleeping persons (regardless of the type of dream) represent the human world of illusions.

What is this world of illusions? In this world/relm of existence all things change. We grow older, power changes, we learn, even the weather changes every minute (even if we aren't aware of how small it its). These changes are a part of the cycle that keep the world going. But on the cosmic reality level everything is the same, the illusion is gone we see things as they truely are.

There are three emosions; pleasure, neutral, suffering. If we live in a world of illusions we attach pleasure to certain objects/situations; but since all things are in a state of change in this world, those situations change as well, meaning we loose the pleasure and it becomes suffering. Attachment leads to suffering (a well known Buddist thought), pleasure leads to suffering because of the cycle. But if we are neutral to all things and take it one moment at a time, we have wisdom to break from the cycle. There is nothing wrong with goals, but when we get caught up in the small details (become attached to them) we loose track of the big picture and the goal changes- leading to suffering.

So, Buddists believe in suffering in this live and the next, but not in a hell like place where one burns forever in a twisted world of pain. The pain is now and we created it for the next life if we do not teach ourselves wisdom.

Hope that answered the question without raising too many more!-)

Answer 2

If you look at the Buddhist Book of the Dead, which is often read to a dying person to prepare him, you will see descriptions of various bardo states. Some of these can be quite frightening, especially if not anticipated. I don't think these are intended to be a hell per se, but just some of the various experiences after death.

Answer 3

Torment in a fiery hell in a life after death was always a fearful expectation of Hinduism; Buddhism tries to abolish this fear by concentrating on nonparticipation. Since the use of the senses would be required for making hell a place of which to be afraid, Buddha thought that by putting the senses out of action, this would make hell ineffective; and the state of nonparticipation would abolish all things, good and evil, pleasant as well as unpleasant.
Jainism and Buddhism both have their versions of hell, where impenitent sinners are tormented.

Answer 4

A certain sense where you will get repaid for what you had done.

Buddhist idea is : You have no free lunch. You get what you done. If you created hell, you will get hell. If you created heaven, you will get heaven.

Therefore, if you do enough evil, you will end up in a plane of existence where you will be tortured as much as you tortured others. When your punishment of what you had done is enough, you will die and go to another plane of existence.

Buddhist idea .... if you curse others with enough hell, you end up in hell :P.

Answer 5

They believe in lower planes of existence, they also believe in the inescapable impermanence of our existence (everyone you know will either die before you causing you pain or suffer from your death.). That is the first noble truth of buddhism. To some outside the faith that impermanence may be considered hell, but they don't believe in the hot place with the demons, etc....

Answer 6

I don't think so, at least not in the christian sense.

Answer 7

I'm pretty sure they do.