An outing to Hell ?
 

I was reading this report from Malaysia and thinking about cultural superstitions and add-ons to the Buddha's teachings in general.

"54 people go on ‘hell’ tour"

http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.as...7784&sec=north

Fortunately it was only 54 people rather than several hundred or more !

Any comments?


http://www.buddhismwithoutboundaries.com/dazz/av_hell

Deep, really deep man http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...s/meditate.gif

Hang on - what type of sports car was it? and was it red?????

The sophistication of the "spiritual" market offers any sort satisfaction for any kind of needed experience. There is people for everything.

I saw a Buddhist "Hell camp" in Thailand. Sad the way religiosity creeps in and distorts things.

Too bad nobody wants to visit the abattoirs and commercial animal farms....

Yes, I've seen animals in some really dreadful conditions myself.


Returning to the topic of the Buddhist Hell realms, some of the depictions of Christian Hell tortures and so on painted by Bosch are very like the Buddhist ones.

http://www.buddhismwithoutboundaries...z/av_Bosch.jpg

Yeah, seems to be that Buddhism as a religion serves the same ethical and psychological functions as most religions. Maybe it's true that some people have to be scared into behaving acceptably in society.

Yes, it definately seems to be a morality teaching in that the 'Hell Realms' are interpreted as a very scary place that we actually go to if we behave badly.

Kamma can also function like that for some, it seems, but that's probably a topic for a different thread.

I've always interpreted it as experiencing a mental hell state of one kind of another in the same lifetime, not going to live after death in some other horrific plane of existence where one receives punishments and torture.

Same here, but others present it that way. It's a part of the Korean traditions, for example, and like I said earlier, I saw a "Buddhist Hell" camp in Thailand. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...milies/sad.gif