The Magic Roundabout

In the last piece we delved into the mechanics of karma, how actions that are clearly formulated, intentionally carried out and which cause satisfaction create an imprint which will affect our perception and many events later in this life and in lives to come. Now let’s look at the different places this karma can land us using as our inspiration the very enlightening Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. Published in 1973 this book became one of the most influential books on the Dharma from that era because its author, a controversial Lama called Chögyam Trungpa, described psychologically the experience of samsara. Suddenly Buddhism jumped off the page, it was all about the emotions I am feeling now. This is the teaching of the Six Realms of Existence; we could think of it as six pieces of coloured glass that when we view our lives through them distort in different ways what we see.

The Hell Realm

When we feel we are under attack we are inhabiting either of the two hell realms. The hot hell is the feeling of our aggression and hatred towards what we feel is persecuting us and this is made worse by our hopelessly trying to fight back which only increases the torment. The cold hell is when we feel defeated, nothing helps and we are reduced to a helpless seething resentment. In many ways these two hells resemble the fight, flight and freeze reactions that are activated when experiencing a real or imagined threat. Like all defences they have their place but when unnecessarily persisted in they turn against us.

The Hungry Ghosts

The creatures that inhabit this realm have tiny mouths, leading to long constricted throats that open into cavernous bellies. The message is clear. This is the feeling of insatiable emptiness whether it be emotional or physical. Associated with guilt, depression and despair, this hell is typified by endlessly searching for something we can’t find, a home, a partner, a group of friends. And even if we were to find any of these things, the chances are that we would not recognise them or be able to take them in. Feeling full is another land and having never known it, it is almost impossible to recognise.

The Animal Realm

This mind state is about behaving in habitual ways. Another phrase might be ‘automatic pilot’ in the way secular mindfulness uses it - essentially being unconscious of what we are doing. The reason this is associated with animals is the belief that an animal simply ‘follows its nose’, and though this is an oversimplification of what animals actually do, the idea holds true. It’s being guided by instinct rather than reflection. As such this realm is about being asleep, continuing in the same way, a kind of dull stupidity. It’s comfortably clinging to our defences. It’s also, to steal a Trungpa phrase I particularly like, being ‘intoxicated by safety’. The idea that being more awake feels dangerous so let’s just keep our heads down and not engage. Let’s not properly look and see. Because of this when linked to the three root poisons, it’s the poison of ignorance of our true nature.

The Human Realm

The human realm in many way in no different from the animal realm - we are all animals after all. We all suffer birth, old age, sickness and death, we are all driven by ignorance, craving and anger. But here’s the thing, what makes the human realm different is our capacity to notice, to stand back, become curious, reflective and discriminating. This is why it is only when in this part of ourselves that we are able to practice the Dharma. While the other five realms are deluded mind states which we become entirely identified with, the human realm offers the one place where we can realise the means to bring these identifications to an end. For this reason this realm is the most valuable realm of all and is to be cherished.

The Jealous Gods

When we become a jealous god we are driven to achieve, compete and accumulate more and more. This space is about unhealthy ambition, the need to be better than everyone else. It also encompasses perfectionism, grandiosity and an amoral drive that will use any form of manipulation to achieve its goals. From a psychotherapist’s perspective the word ‘jealous’ is not quite enough. What would be better is ‘envy’ because this not only tells us we want what someone else has, but we also want to destroy their having it. As such there is much in this realm that mirrors narcissism and sociopathy. And like these wounds, what it defends against is the empty realm of the hungry ghosts. A jealous god will do anything rather than experience their hidden vulnerability, depression and feelings of inferiority.

The God Realm

My feeling here is that two quite separate ideas have been brought together in the description of this last realm. The first describes a heavenly state of mind where there is no struggle to survive. This could easily be associated with the privilege many of us experience in the West in comparison to other areas of the world where political oppression, war and starvation are commonplace. The second is associated with profound states of meditation that may be achieved through heroic acts of discipline and concentration. These are called the formless states that are the fruition of calm abiding meditations. What we call here, ‘doing something’ meditations. And it is because both of these types of god realm experience are dependent on karma to create them, once the karmic impulse is exhausted, these states begin to decay. The gods of pleasure begin to uneasily sense that their realm is coming to an end and the yogins merged in formlessness find themselves drawn back into all the experiences they had hoped to escape. In Buddhism, heaven is but temporary.

The six realms, presented in this way, rather than places we may end up after we die, works for me. It’s another tool to encourage insight. It asks what sort of mind set am I inhabiting now? Am I in my hungry ghost part? Am I being an insufferable jealous god? And it also reminds us that our actions will have an impact on ourselves and others. If I habitually identify with one of the five realms other than the human - as I do - I will begin to perceive everything through that particular distorting lens. It will be as if I have become and interact as a denizen of hell, a hungry ghost, an animal, a jealous god or god all the time.

There’s also the thing about how much of our experience is karmic. This tells us that our perception is entirely karmic but what about what we are experiencing? How much of this is down to our previous intentions? Here I have a suspicion that the system does not bare looking at too closely. Working out which aspects of our lives are karmically determined is impossible - firstly because we are perceiving it and we know perception itself is distorted, and second because the complexity of an entirely interdependent universe is utterly beyond conception. But perhaps this mechanistic approach - what caused what - is to miss the point. Just a loose appreciation of karma does the job of helping us to remain aware of our thoughts, what we say and what we do, and make choices that are wholesome and skilful, choices that reflect our aspiration to become a bodhisattva. There is also a kindness in this way of understanding it. I’m fairly sure that the Buddha did not want to create a system which persecuted those that believed in it. He was not trying to scare us into being good. Rather, he had observed in himself what lead to equanimity and insight and what lead away into further suffering and ignorance and was just trying to share these insights with us. And once this is done it’s up to us.

Lastly, we can also see these six realms as the background emotional notes to our rumination and fantasies. The kind of habitual thought patterns that become all too apparent when we meditate and which frequently carry us away for possibly long periods of time before we notice what is happening and bring ourselves back to the present. Seen in this way the six realms point towards our core wounds, those places of deep hurt that once recognised seem to permeate every aspect of our lives and are particularly apparent when we find ourselves triggered. In the brief explanations given above I’ve tried to suggest this. The very early wounding portrayed as hell beings living in perpetual threat, the despair of the hungry ghosts, the stubborn avoidance of the animal realm, the insecure sense of self hiding behind the defences of the jealous gods and the fragile reality of those that enjoy an entitled existence. However, it’s not all doom and gloom. In the ‘Wheel of Life’ paintings, (Seen above), there is always a Buddha present in each realm. He - or she - represents the possibility in each and every moment to see through the illusion of the realm, that it's finally self-created, and by doing so bring the suffering of samsara to an end. Wisdom and compassion, our buddha-nature, is always and instantly available.

NW. 27 December 2025