Talk:Ten realms

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Does anyone know to what extent this sort of "psychologizing" presentation -- in this specific form, not just in general -- is to be found in Mahayana Buddhism? Is it just Nichiren Buddhism? Or just Soka Gakkai? Are there close parallels elsewhere in Mahayana? RandomCritic 18:15, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Good question, I was just entering this page to note that IMHO this is not at all the general Buddhist view, certainly not of Tibetan Buddhsism, Zen and I also think Theravada. To present the realms this way would be following a minority view as far as I know, althought he direction is correct. rudy 22:30, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

It is definitely to be found in the writings of Tibetan teachers like Chogyam Trungpa et al. See also the attribution to the Dalai Lama regarding the Six Realms [1]. I am in the process of reworking some of these descriptions of the states to fit more closely with the attributes more commonly associated with them. HarmonicSphere, 03:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Good point! However, what His Holiness mentioned is not at all the same as saying that eg. humans can 'be in hell' or 'be in heaven'. By definition (my words) hell is a type of existence classified by mere sufering, without any break of happiness. The human realm is defined as a mix of happiness and suffering combined with an intelligent mind (unlike relatively simple-minded animals). To me, a human who occasionally has a 'hellish experience', is quite something different from an existence which can be only defined as suffering from birth to death. So the mere point that these negative or positive experiences normally move from the one to the other, means we live in neither hell or heaven as per these definitions. Of course, if we try to understand how heaven or hell 'feels' we can only refer to examples of our current life. rudy 18:24, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I've corrected the wording so the article is likely to be at least correct, if unclear. Peter jackson 16:07, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

4 higher realms

I'm not familiar with this presentation of the 4 higher realms (coming from Tibetan Buddhism). Instead, I know them as the various form and formless realms that one can reach through concentration, and are 'above' the 6 desire-realms (which are by no means 'spiritual realms'). What is described here sounds very strange to me in terms of 'realms'. For example, a Bodhisattva can live in either of the 6 desire realms, and does not live in his/her own kind of realm at the same time? In my understanding, both Shravaka- and Pratyeka Buddhas can be seen to experience Nirvana, and a Buddha experiences Parinirvana.rudy (talk) 14:27, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

interpretation

at least, it should be clear on the article that there are 2 basic interpretations for this, and make it clear as (potable) water:

1. Traditional, Real, First, Eastern, Common, Religious Interpretation: the six lower realms correspond to what is described in Buddhist cosmology. They are spiritual states of being that corresponds to places, worlds or planes. Some beings of different realms can live in the same places, but they're part of the same realm in a lifetime. The higher four represent the path of Buddhism towards Nirvana and are optional, one has to make a conscious choice from the other realms (usually just human or human and deva) to be part of this noble four realms.
2. Western, Synchronistic, New, Materialistic, Scientific Interpretation: They're states of being that can happen in this lifetime. A materialistic (just what can be described with science exists) interpretation can be assumed. The higher four are interpreted in basically the same way as above described.--Esteban.barahona (talk) 21:49, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

It is important to note that the two final meanings within the section can co-exist. The logic for this stems from the first two paragraphs and therefore does not require additional citation. It is revealed by source 5 as stated in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theduinoelegy (talk • contribs) 22:00, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Getting Rid of the Tag

This is an important article and it should not be downgraded by the tag. We may need to introduce more sources. As a start I would like to provide an introduction to the breakdown into worlds. BrandenburgG (talk) 19:38, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Copied from my talk page: JimRenge (talk) 02:01, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Ten spiritual realms

Hello, @JimRenge. When you have a chance can you review the above article? Do you think it now warrants the removal of the tags? Also, any feedback is appreciated.

In my honest opinion, the article is now strong and balanced. What I think is lacking is one more section on the applications of the Ten Spiritual Realms. What do you think?BrandenburgG (talk) 01:42, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

BrandenburgG, I have removed unsourced and inappropriately sourced (blogs) content per WP:BURDEN. I have als removed the citations needed tag but some sourcing problems remain, Trike daily is a blog and Daisaku Ikeda is not an independant source. I think a chronological presentation, Tiantai, Tendai, Nichiren, may be helpful. JimRenge (talk) 02:01, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, @JimRenge. I think the article is much tighter now. I will work on it some more as you suggest. I'm unhappy with the title. Most scholars use "ten realms" or "ten worlds" to translate Jikkai. There are a few sources that use "ten spiritual realms" but they are not very prominent.

Right now there is not much participation on the talk page and I hesitate to make the change on my own. Do you have any thoughts?BrandenburgG (talk) 10:50, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

What do you think of merging the "ten realms" and Ten suchnesses articles into a "Three thousand worlds [realms] in one thought moment" article? Perhaps it may be better to have one article that presents these concepts in context. We could also avoid repeating the 3000 worlds concept in these articles. I have no strong opinion about this, this is just an idea. JimRenge (talk) 21:28, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

@JimRenge, I think this is a great suggestion based on what I have read. I think the emphasis should be the grand concept Chih-i was constructing rather than the sub-constituencies.BrandenburgG (talk) 11:21, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Changing Title

I'm a Johnny-Come-Lately here and I do not know the history of this article. Can someone tell me how the article came to be known as "Ten Spiritual Realms"? Since I started researching this topic I've seen many references to "Ten Realms" and "Ten Worlds" but very few on "Ten Spiritual Realms." Can someone fill me in here? Should the word "spiritual" be removed at some point? Thank you. BrandenburgG (talk) 20:03, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

We apply WP:COMMONNAME and use the term that is commonly used in independent, reliable sources. Buswells Encyclopedia of Buddhism uses "ten realms of existence"; "ten realms" and "ten worlds" (mandala) is used in R. Keller Kimbrough (2006). Preaching the Animal Realm in Late Medieval Japan, Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 65, No. 2, pp. 179-204; "ten worlds" in Lucia Dolce, Criticism and Appropriation: Nichiren's Attitude toward Esoteric Buddhism, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Vol. 26, No. 3/4, Revisiting Nichiren (Fall,1999), pp. 349-382 [p. 367]. We will have to check the available sources. Ten spiritual realms is not very common. JimRenge (talk) 20:57, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Based on your sources, which match mine, I would recommend changing the title to "Ten realms" with a parenthetical reference to "ten worlds." BrandenburgG (talk) 11:12, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Using Buswell, I changed the article's title to "Ten Realms of Existence" with parenthetical references to "Ten realms" and "Ten worlds."

Sorry, I tried but discovered it needs a higher-level editor to change the title. @JimRenge, do you want to give it a stab?

The term "spiritual" realms is currently cited in the lede to Junjirō Takakusu's "The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy", p. 143. He was distinguished turn-of-century scholar who helped popularize Japanese religions into English so the citation should be taken seriously. That page, however, is not available on Google Books. In subsequent pages, though, he uses "realms" and "worlds" interchangeably. I did do a word search for "spiritual realms" which sometimes uncovers pages that are not sampled. Nothing turned up on that search.

It is possible that we are dealing with WP:OR here in the inclusion of "spiritual" in the title. I would recommend changing the title as soon as possible to reflect WP:COMMONNAME as @JimRenge mentioned above.BrandenburgG (talk) 15:33, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Done, I used the "move" function, no "higher-level editor" was needed to do it. I remember that in some cases this can be done exclusively by an administrator. JimRenge (talk) 18:36, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Junjirō Takakusu's "The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy" is listed at Archive org [2]. JimRenge (talk) 00:58, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, @JimRenge, and thanks for the Junjiro Takakusu source. It felt very Orwellian but I replaced "spiritual realms" with "realms" throughout the article. BrandenburgG (talk) 12:56, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Changing subtitle to "three thousand realms in a single moment"

I substituted the names of the subtitle. Prior it was "Mutual possession of the ten worlds" and the discussion then led up to "three thousand realms in a single moment." This is illogical. The title of the subsection should summarize the conclusion, not the starting point.

Please feel free to revert and engage in additional conversation if need be. BrandenburgG (talk) 21:07, 21 January 2018 (UTC)