Is Avici hell eternal?

[Dhammanando]

If I recall you from a while ago on DhammaWheel (some years ago), I think either you or the user Alfatun in responces to you used a dichotomy of Platonic Forms vs Theseus' Ship to explore it.

Yes, it was actually both of us. Alfatun was the Platonic forms guy and I was the Theseus' Ship one.

https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=30165

[dude]

It's like how long can you wait? When you're in great pain you don't know if you can stand another minute of it. After a few million years it might well feel like it will never end. We mortals go nuts at far shorter bad experiences.

[Norden]

In most of the sources I've read about Buddhist cosmology, they state that there is no eternal hell (or heaven) in Buddhism. Only Nirvana is permanent.

However, I came across this article in the Chinese Buddhist Encylopedia, where it is stated that Avici may be eternal. Are there any sutras or other sources that back that up?

One of the things I like about Buddhism is that, unlike Christianity, there is no eternal hell.

No no no, you misunderstand. One of the Buddha disciple, Devadatta was in Avici because he made the Buddha bleed. But he will get out from there one day and become pacceka Buddha. Avici is not nibbana, so it's not eternal.

[PadmaVonSamba]

In most of the sources I've read about Buddhist cosmology, they state that there is no eternal hell (or heaven) in Buddhism. Only Nirvana is permanent.

However, I came across this article in the Chinese Buddhist Encylopedia, where it is stated that Avici may be eternal. Are there any sutras or other sources that back that up?

One of the things I like about Buddhism is that, unlike Christianity, there is no eternal hell.

Reading further in the link you provided, it is suggested that “eternal” doesn’t mean permanent, but rather, just really, really long, and repeating, kalpa after kalpa.

[Sādhaka]

I’ve read somewhere, by a Tibetan if I’m not mistaken, that one can go to avici eternally because of broken commitments, because what happens supposedly is that as soon as one avici hell dissolves which one has taken rebirth in, one will simply get transferred to another one that hasn’t been dissolved yet; and that this would keep happening eternally.

Is there any scriptural basis for this? Or is it merely an Tibetan assertion?

If anyone would have been an candidate for something like that, it would have been Rudra, no? And out of compassion, the Buddhas intervened to stop Rudra’s perpetual rebirth in one avici hell after another.

Did Rudra go to avici and then become Rudra after? Or did Rudra become Rudra first, then go to avici afterwards? Or did they both happen simultaneously?

[tellyontellyon]

'Time' itself is a quality of Samsara.

[Sonam Wangchug]

No, don't forget at the exhaustion of a Kalpa the three lower realms, and then the higher form realms dissolve.

One place this is discussed is in Kangyur Rinpoche's commentary on Jigme Linpa's text Treasury Of Precious Qualities, volume 1

[Schrödinger’s Yidam]

'Time' itself is a quality of Samsara.

Isn’t Avici Hell samsara?

[TrimePema]

'Time' itself is a quality of Samsara.

Isn’t Avici Hell samsara?

DKR says something like "avici hell is the conceptual mind that can't recognize awareness."

[Schrödinger’s Yidam]

'Time' itself is a quality of Samsara.

Isn’t Avici Hell samsara?

DKR says something like "avici hell is the conceptual mind that can't recognize awareness."

Then all of us are there!

[Fortyeightvows]

No, don't forget at the exhaustion of a Kalpa the three lower realms, and then the higher form realms dissolve.

One place this is discussed is in Kangyur Rinpoche's commentary on Jigme Linpa's text Treasury Of Precious Qualities, volume 1

Can we think of anything else that dissolves from the bottom up?

[well wisher]

No, don't forget at the exhaustion of a Kalpa the three lower realms, and then the higher form realms dissolve.

One place this is discussed is in Kangyur Rinpoche's commentary on Jigme Linpa's text Treasury Of Precious Qualities, volume 1

Can we think of anything else that dissolves from the bottom up?

Lighting a piece of paper on fire from the bottom will make it disintegrate from the bottom to top.
Same analogy with a tree rotting from its base: see tree trunk rot.

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/treat-tre ... 92612.html