HEAVEN AND HELL?
It may come as a surprise, but heavens and hells exist in Buddhism, although they are different from the Christian descriptions. One could say that heaven and hell are different realms (dimensions), where beings live under respectively extremely happy and extremely suffering conditions. It is a logical consequence of the laws of karma. When one creates vast amounts of negative actions to others, one will harvest lots of suffering in the future – such a life could be in one of the hell realms. Similarly, many good actions can cause one to be reborn in a heavenly realm of happiness. Life in heaven and hell, like all other realms (human, animal and preta) is a temporary situation, as they are are within the realm of cyclic existence. This means that a life in hell is not eternal (although it may feel like it), and neither is heaven. The final aim of a Buddhist should be to become free from death and rebirth, which is called Nirvana (Skt.) or Nibbana (Pali). A life in heaven is regarded a
