Escaping Hell

2025, July, Issue 158

In that instant

of unrelenting anger,

Your own personal hell,

Seemingly eternal, oppressive, fiery,

Extreme pain of madness,

Discover your ability

to transform that hell,

looking within your bright heart center,

transforming that disturbance

with love and compassion,

with the aspiration to awaken;

Bring yourself out of these

Extreme

lower realms of mind,

Expand your heart and mind

somewhat, tapping into

that ineffable reality far beyond,

beyond any such

agitated state of mind;

Ride that wind horse;

Bring with you all blessings,

Blessings of your own precious light,

Riding swiftly to the highest realms, beyond

beyond what you thought could be possible

and back again, liberating mind,

with all possibilities,

within this cyclic existence,

beyond, with total freedom!

See the illusion as it unfolds in an instant;

Explore the root of such

intense suffering,

See your tormentors not with anger,

See them simply, realistically,

As they are, not as they seem;

Expanding inwardly,

With love and compassion,

Discovering all that you need,

Accept this great teaching;

Your suffering cannot truly

be imposed upon you;

There is no god who can send you to hell,

there is no karma which will place you

in the burning hells of mind forever;

Only you can send you to hell,

and,

through great compassion

you can escape all such intense pain

as easily as this bright light shines,

shining from within, beyond all constraints,

shining with clarity and wisdom,

shining with awareness;

When you realize

you have that precious key,

the key that reveals all,

the key to escape all,

all that holds you back,

all that prevents you

from discovering who you really are,

you will transform such tragedy;

Nothing will ever remain in your way again;

You will have discovered

your own ultimate power, which is

the Aspiration to Awaken,

which is

Bodhicitta;

When you can transform all

Through your own aspiration,

Through your own engagement with

Enlightenment Mind,

You will awaken!

A poem by Robert Aho © 2025

People find themselves in any number of very difficult situations that seem inescapable, often so intensely painful that others cannot even fathom such suffering. This goes on in our world all the time; and, it usually goes completely unreported, completely overlooked. The world generates a smorgasbord of unspeakable tragedies that often go by without even a passing comment from anyone. The world is a very terrible place that self-perpetuates such suffering. If you could see the tragedy in full, if you were aware of all the pain, it would quickly become unbearable.

Sometimes you may hear that there is no hell, or that when we die we cannot encounter such a place. In reality, hell can be experienced in your daily life and dreams. We can certainly pass through such a place when we die, when we are in this energetic condition of all possibilities. I say we can pass through, because no state of mind is permanent. It’s all temporary, even with this bigger issue of cyclic existence. I could see that quite clearly in the death bardo.

In Buddhism, the hell realm is really simply that state of mind that is dominated by anger. When we start to understand that everything we experience conceptually is nothing other than mind, something illusory, we can begin to see how we must be careful when we proceed through life. It’s very easy to become embroiled in the battles of this life, thinking that our own anger will somehow solve something. This is a paradigm of our age. People think that they need to battle everything that comes their way. In reality, if we engage in battle, the suffering becomes worse.

Maybe don’t accept delusional paradigms. Think about your own state of mind. Think about being gentle with yourself. When you find yourself becoming angry or agitated with seemingly external events, examine the root of that anger. Look at mind. See what your mind is doing, watch the agitation that you are generating in your own mind. Examine very carefully if you can see any reason to hold onto this anger. Look carefully, truly understand what this anger is actually doing to you, your own wellbeing, your mind. Examine this paradigm we are expected to accept, that we must do battle with everything we don’t like. See what that attitude is really doing. It’s obvious that we harm ourselves when we are angered.

If, on the other hand, we aspire to awaken, we can’t help but see everything with compassion. When we aspire to awaken, we unleash blessings for self and other. Useless things such as anger, greed, fear, ignorance and hatred can be abandoned at once. We start to develop wisdom. We find ourselves sending positive karma everywhere. This aspiration to awaken can transform the world, not just your own mind. We can see this happening as a force of nature, as one thing changing something else and spreading into eternity.

Even something as deadly as these hells we generate for ourselves can be transformed, if we never give up, if we hold our own Spiritual Practice in the highest regard. Bodhicitta is the most precious jewel that we can possibly possess. It unlocks everything, sending blessings everywhere through our own positive actions. If we transform in this way, we awaken.

Blessings in Light,

Robert Aho