Rational Nation USA

The suttas described 31 distinct “planes” or “realms” of existence into which beings can be reborn during their long wandering through samsara.  These range from the extraordinarily dark, grim and painful hell realms all the way up to the most sublime, refined and exquisitely blissful heavenly realms.  Existence in every realm is impermanent; in the  cosmology  taught by the Buddha there is no eternal  heaven or hell.   Beings are born into a particular realm according to both their past kamma and their kamma at the moment of death.  When the kammic force that propelled them to that realm is finally exhausted, they pass away, taking rebirth once again elsewhere according to their kamma.  And so the wearisome cycle continues on and on into the deepest recesses of infinity. SOURCE

 

 

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  Cosmology : T he science of the origin and development of the universe. Modern astronomy is dominated by the Big Bang theory, which brings together observational astronomy and particle physics. an account or theory of the origin of the universe. Buddhist Cosmology : I s the description of the shape and evolution of the   Universe   according to the   Buddhist   scriptures   and   commentaries . It consists of temporal and spatial cosmology: the temporal cosmology being the division of the existence of a 'world' into four discrete moments (the creation, duration, dissolution, and state of being dissolved; this does not seem to be a canonical division, however). The spatial cosmology consists of a vertical cosmology, the various planes of beings, their bodies, characteristics, food, lifespan, beauty and a horizontal cosmology, the distribution of these world-systems into an "apparently" infinite sheet of “worlds”. The existence of world-periods (mo...