Perhaps the only fortunate thing about the Buddha’s concept of impermanence is that it extends to all states: hell, like heaven, is not lasting. A person remains there, suffering intensely, only until the unfavorable karma from past evil deeds is exhausted. Then that person is reborn again on earth, with a fresh opportunity to learn that actions which harm life contain the seeds of their own punishment. Hell in Buddhism really is educative, not vengeful, and it is not the sentence of a wrathful deity but the natural, unavoidable result of actions that violate dharma. Suffering drives home the
...more
