This is also where the real heart of “rebirth in the 6 realms” idea comes in. In every moment, we seem to be born into a moment where we have a fundamental self-other relationship to reality, and this relationship is oddly tautological. We are explosively angry and what we notice are more things that make us explosively angry (hot hell realm). We are seething with hatred (cold hell realm) we just see more and more things that make us hate. (These two flavors of hell count as “the hell realm”) Then there are those moments when we are greedy and addicted to getting more and what we notice are all the ways that maybe we could satisfy that unsatisfyable addition (hungry ghost realm). Sometimes we just want to live a formulaic life, not think too much and do what we’ve done, so all we see are the ways to repeat old patterns that worked in the past and kinda go on autopilot (animal realm). In the human realm, we have the ability to do more fine and precise evaluations, weight this against that, making reasoned judgements but at the core we are feeding our sense of desire, a kind of sophisticated human way of desiring, but fundamental desires that go away as soon as they are satisfied and then yet another desire comes along, on and on forever… or We are feeling jealous and notice all the things that people have and we want to compete or battle for it (jealous gods realm). Or we kinda feel like we’re on top and we’re right about everything and we most walk around with a sense of pride but secretly kinda wonder if things might change (the realm of the gods).
The main thing that separates Buddhism from almost every other religion/philosophy is this pointing out of the dependent arising of meaning. You could say, “the viewpoint in the moment is a bias and selects evidence in the moment that confirms the viewpoint”. This how you say it in sort of scientific language. But through meditation practice, you can actually begin to see/feel how this actually happens in real time, which is VERY different that having the belief that this is how it works or intellectually looking backward and figuring out how this happened just a few moments ago.
With meditation practice you can see this happening as it is being done… and once you really see it, you realize how all these paradoxes are resolved, inner and outer, self and others, view and meanings, this and that, experience and observer of experience, etc. That means we have a very different relationship with sensations, urges, emotions, and thoughts. They are neither completely real, nor completely unreal. We see how they both are and are not. This is emptiness in a very deep sense and is pretty much the heart of the insights of later paths.
Another interesting point about the 6 realms idea: it’s only in the human realm that the being can choose to meditate. All the other realms are too reactive. Hell beings are lost rage (angry tweets and biased “news” channels), Hungry Ghost chase their addictions (drugs and video games), Animals are stuck in a rut (eating the same breakfast every day, doing their commute, doing their standard workout, watching “their” TV show, going to bed at their normal time), Humans are chasing the next desire (bigger house, new car, more stylish clothes, new cookbooks and perhaps a better designed grill for making better barbeque), Asuras/Jealous Gods are busy expanding their doctor and lawyer practice and figuring out new investments that will put them in more rich and powerful circles and trying to get the promotion at work by outmaneuvering their competition. The Gods are busy isolating themselves in gated communities and protecting their assets and buying islands to hide at if the SHTF and trying to find ways to eat and shop and travel and watch sports in ringside or skybox seats so they don’t have to deal with those annoying non-gods.
… but only humans can do the tricky move of desiring awakening and desiring a meditation practice! Basically using desire to see through desire. Very clever you humans!!
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Classic emotions in 6 Realms. It is very common for us to avoid emotions we don’t particularly like and instead focus on the sensations of it or the thoughts of it, but not the raw emotion itself. Emotions hurt, which is why they are so powerful. Emotions are also a very fast source of information, which is why after emotional habits are cleaned up, the mind will continue to have very fast yet very fleeting emotions as a source of very quick “thinking” yet without all of the clinging that is normally associated with emotions. It pays to look closely at the nature of emotions during meditation.
- Hell Realm: The overt emotion in this realm is anger/hate. Either you have hot and explosive anger or cold seething hate. There is also the “neighboring hells” which is basically a manifestation of very aggressive avoidance and “hating the hate”, you keep fighting your own hate, trying to get away from it, but because you “hate your hate” you bring the emotion with you wherever you go. The dominant attitude is “oppose”. If you go into a situation assuming you will have to oppose things, hell is sure to come…
- Hungry Ghost: The overt emotion is manifestations of greed, an intense greed that can never be satisfied due to the speed of the world. Either a poverty mentality where nothing is enough and anything needs to be horded, a petty feeling of pseudo-injustice where you feel you can’t enjoy what you have, or an intensity of greed that prevents any momentary satisfaction because you need to get the next thing. The dominate attitude is “take”. If you go into a situation focused on what’s there to take, you are already feeling poor and have an attiude that will blossom into greed.
- The Animal Realm: This one is tricky because the reactivity in this world is not very “emotional” in the human sense. (And animals in real life are awesome, so the inherent prejudice against animals kinda rubs my fur the wrong way…) I even had to go online and read a list of 400 emotions to help me put this into my own words…. but here’s the deal: the emotions in this realm are things like “obeying, following, nostalgia, resignation, numbness, or being stupefied” — sort of non-emotion emotions. So an animal will follow it’s instinct and often it’s instinct is to obey/follow others. This is also the world of debilitating depression, being overwhelmed or confused. The dominate attitude is a very non-clever “just survive” mentality. Doing the least to get by, doing what has worked in the past, not developing as a person because “a leopard can’t change it’s spots.”
- The Human Realm: The emotion here is desire, what an interesting emotion. The human world is where there is never a time without a desire and where achieving the desire is so satisfying… for a while. But don’t worry, another desire will overtake you soon enough! The form of desire in this world is one that is carefully considered, unlike the greed of the hungry ghost world, humans consider pros and cons, cost and benefit — we shop for our desires! One way to think of the core human emotion is a bittersweet “frustrated enjoyment”. The core attitude is basically idealism — making things more simple and more better than the reality of the world through a slight bias in the way we conceptualize things. Without this idealism, we wouldn’t get completely seduced by our desires. And if we go into a situation with some form of idealism, we’ll search out ways to find confirming evidence that proves our ideals, evaluating things against the ideal. Of course, the desire for awakening from desire is the way out of this mess. Clever humans! Traditionally they say you can only awaken in the human realm.
- Titans/Asuras – Wanting to be great!! The dominant emotions are quiet feelings of inadequacy to more obvious forms of jealosy. This is an important world for over-achievers to ponder. Especially the tragic downfall that always occurs. A titan will always fail… because they never stop. They always go past their abilities and lose their investments, health, status, reputation. The dominant attitude is “Achieve”. If you go into a situation thinking about what you can achieve by being there… then you are already on your way to being born as a titan in that situation.
- Gods/Devas – I am great! The dominant emotions are superiority and pride. The dominant attitude is actually “maintain” — which is a how the gods always are isolating subtle dukka and trying to push it away. They shop in different stores, sit in sky boxes at sporting events, live in gated communities. The downfall of the gods is they don’t pay attention to little things, they can’t be bothered, and then like rust or termites their whole world slowly falls apart. Like the Hemmingway statement “How did you go bankrupt? First slow, then fast.” The fall of gods is ironic — they really have no friends because as soon as trouble hits (even in the slightest way) their “friends” isolate them and push them away!
When I encountered the 6 realms teaching, I stopped getting distracted by the speed of emotions and started paying attention to the overall strategy and worldview that I was operating under. Regardless of what emotions where happening — what was my general attitude? Anger? Greed? Wallowing? Wanting? Achieving? Pride? I only had 6 categories to choose from. And I could see how anger just kept cycling in anger, greed in greed, wallowing in wallowing, wanting in wanting, achieving in achieving, pride in pride. Aha! So that’s how it works!!
The suffering of worldviews is how we make some basic assumptions about how life is or should be and then get subtly frustrated when things don’t line up. Usually we’ll blame ourselves for something we’re doing wrong… but often at this stage it’s our worldview that is flawed. And most of these worldviews are founded on some simple assumption, like the event being being wrong, or not enough, or the same as it was in the past, or inherently satisifying, or an accomplishment, or an escape. Usually these are associated with subtle proto-emotions of opposition, greed, dullness, desire, ambition, and pride. This is the classic 6 realms teaching and being reborn in realms — hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, asuras, and devas — but for very advanced meditators. It focuses on the subtle psychology of identity.
Βy shargol @ DharmaOverground, from compilation @ https://shargrolpostscompilation.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#emotions6realms