Length of time in hell...

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KeepCalm
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Length of time in hell...

Post by KeepCalm »

I wonder if anyone can help. Is there a sutta where it describes the length of time people spend in the various hells? On this Wikipedia page, it gives various times for the length of time in hell. I just wondered if this was from a Sutta or...?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naraka_(Buddhism)
2600htz
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Re: Length of time in hell...

Post by 2600htz »

Hi:

There is, but i cant remember the sutta.
Goes something like "But venerable, can a simile be made? (About the length of time in hell). Bhikkhu a simile can be made. Suposse a person would struck a mountain every 100 years with a piece of silk...."

Regards.
48vows
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Re: Length of time in hell...

Post by 48vows »

There are some mahayana texts that go into these things in some detail.
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DooDoot
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Re: Length of time in hell...

Post by DooDoot »

2600htz wrote: Tue Jul 27, 2021 10:21 pm There is, but i cant remember the sutta.
The suttas about the length of time of an "eon" ("kappa") are SN 15.5 and SN 15.6.

Then some suttas that say hell is for an eon are AN 10.39 and AN 8.7.

However, DN 16 says the Buddha said he could live on for a "kappa" therefore "kappa" does not always mean "eon".

Also, about hell, a sutta says:
There is the case where a trifling evil deed done by a certain individual takes him to hell. There is the case where the very same sort of trifling deed done by another individual is experienced in the here & now, and for the most part barely appears for a moment.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html
MN 130, the most detailed sutta about hell, says hell lasts for "a long time (dīgharatta) until the bad kamma is exhausted (pāpakammaṁ byantīhoti)".

:P :jedi: :weep:
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2600htz
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Re: Length of time in hell...

Post by 2600htz »

DooDoot wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 1:06 am
2600htz wrote: Tue Jul 27, 2021 10:21 pm There is, but i cant remember the sutta.
The suttas about the length of time of an "eon" ("kappa") are SN 15.5 and SN 15.6.

Then some suttas that say hell is for an eon are AN 10.39 and AN 8.7.

However, DN 16 says the Buddha said he could live on for a "kappa" therefore "kappa" does not always mean "eon".

Also, about hell, a sutta says:
There is the case where a trifling evil deed done by a certain individual takes him to hell. There is the case where the very same sort of trifling deed done by another individual is experienced in the here & now, and for the most part barely appears for a moment.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html
MN 130, the most detailed sutta about hell, says hell lasts for "a long time (dīgharatta) until the bad kamma is exhausted (pāpakammaṁ byantīhoti)".

:P :jedi: :weep:

Thanks!

Oops i posted the wrong analogy.
It was AN 10.89

"
When he said this, one of the mendicants asked the Buddha, “Sir, how long is the life span in the Pink Lotus hell?”

“It’s long, mendicant. It’s not easy to calculate how many years, how many hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of years it lasts.”

“But sir, is it possible to give a simile?”

“It’s possible,” said the Buddha.

Suppose there was a Kosalan cartload of twenty bushels of sesame seed. And at the end of every hundred years someone would remove a single seed from it. By this means the Kosalan cartload of twenty bushels of sesame seed would run out faster than a single lifetime in the Abbuda hell. Now, twenty lifetimes in the Abbuda hell equal one lifetime in the.....".
Regards.
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KeepCalm
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Re: Length of time in hell...

Post by KeepCalm »

Thank you all for your replies.
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Re: Length of time in hell...

Post by chownah »

In english we have a colloquial saying which explicitly talks about how long one spends in hell....we say it is "one hell of a long time". :jumping:
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Re: Length of time in hell...

Post by cappuccino »

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."


the phrase is an inscription over the gates of hell


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salayatananirodha
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Re: Length of time in hell...

Post by salayatananirodha »

this is detailed, from the sutta nipata https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/KN/S ... p3_10.html
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