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| Explanations of some Buddhist terms. | |
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| Term | Definition | |
| Hearer | (skt.: shravaka; tib.: nyen tho) Shravaka literally means Hearer or Listener. It refers to those Hinayana practitioners who, with the motivation of renouncing the Samsara and to achieve permanent happines for themselves, strive to reach Nirvana. They focus on the Four Noble Truths and on understanding that there is no independent self. In this process they listen to the teachings of a Buddha, and achieve this goal by realizing the nonexistence of personal self. In order to attain their goal, they go through what is called four results of spiritual practice: 1. by understanding that there is no personal self, they achieve the stage of Stream enterer at the path of seeing (Shravaka Arya) 2. this is followed by the stage of Once-Returner, who will be reborn only one more time in desire realm of Samsara 3. this is followed by the stage on Non-Returner, who will never be reborn in desire realm of Samsara again 4. and finally they reach Nirvana, so they are called Shravaka Arhats | |
| Hell realm | (skt.: naraka; tib.: nyel wa) The lowest realm of samsara, which is full of suffering. There are four types of hells: 1. Hot hells 2. Surrounding hells 3. Cold hells 4. Occasional hells | |
| Hinayana | (skt.: hinayana; tib.: theg men) Small or lesser vehicle. It refers to one of the two general divisions of Buddhism. Hinayana is a collective term for eighteen Buddhist schools, only one of which is currently extant, Theravada. Some of the other schools are: Ekavyavaharika, Lokottaravada, Kaukkutika, Bahushrutiya, Prajnaptivadin (also Prajnaptivadin), Chaityavadin, Aparashaila, Uttarashaila, Mahasamghika, Mahishasaka, Kashyapiya, Sautrantika, Dharmottara, Bhadrayaniya, Sammatiya, Shannagarika. Motivation of Hinayana pracititioners for following the Dharma path is renunciation of samsara and their goal is personal nirvana. This is also why this school is called lesser vehicle - because the motivation is smaller than in Mahayana. There are two kind of Hinayana practitioners: hearers and solitary-realizers. | |
| Hot hells | (tib.: tsha nyel wa) They are said to be located under Bodhgaya in India. All the ground and all the mountains in these hells are composed entirely of red hot iron; the ground, like that in the human realms, is not at all flat and hell fire is seven time hotter than fire in human realms. There are eight types of hot hells: 1. Hell of Continual Resurrection: inhabitants have hatred towards everyone there and everyone attacks each other. When all are dead, a voice from the sky says Revive and they revive, get up and start again. 2. Black Line Hell: hell guards seize you and lay you on the burning iron ground and put hot chains across your body which leave black burn lines. Other hell guards cut you up along those lines. Each part of you that is cut up still feels pain. 3. Assemble-and-be-crushed Hell: hell guards drive you into a canyon between mountains and then the walls collapse or close and smash you. Then the mountains open and you regenerate 4. Hell of Lamentation: you are placed inside a house of burning iron with no doors and it is all on fire. Your great suffering makes you wail. 5. Hell of Great Lamentation: you are placed in an iron house which is contained within another, similar to the one above. Suffering is twice as great. 6. Hotter Hell: you are impaled on a flaming iron skewer and burned inside out. You are cooked in huge cauldron of boiling water. 7. Even Hotter Hell: similar as above, but the suffering is twice as great. 8. Hell Without Respite (Avichi hell): this is the worst hell because it contains more suffering than all the suffering of the three realms combined. Beings there are burned by eleven fires and become indistingushable from the fire and the only way to know that there are sentient beings is by the pathetic sound they make. | |
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