There’s a horse in heaven realms, a crow in ghost realm, and probably in hell too? And also human, but also does animals have their own realms? The realms that only they exist?
Hi Lee, is this from a Sutta?
We see these things in the Vimanavatthu and Petavatthu. We also see similar things in SN 19 Lakkhaṇa Saṁyutta, one of the only other places where we get even minimal info about ghosts.
My understanding is that, like the torturers in hell, these are not actual living being but rather manifestations of one’s previous good and bad karma. So nothing more than “inanimate” objects that happen to move around and behave as if they were alive.
I don’t have any textual support for that though.
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Oh, I always thought those were demons (i.e. possible to be reborn as). And I believe there is an example of someone being reborn as one of the heavenly nymphs… which seems a somewhat comparable “supporting role.”
I don’t really know much around these collections, but are they really saying that there is something like “a horse in heaven realms”?
For me, animals are always in the animal realm, humans are are always in the human realm, etc. The realms seem to overlap each other in time and space in the suttas. If one can perceive a being in another realm, it just means that you are sensitive to that realm at that moment. That sensitivity appears to go up or down depending on the state of your mind - more stillness brings about more sensitivity. So the Buddha for example, because he was a good meditator, was also in general very sensitive and could see beings in all of the realms he lists. Of course, the state of your other five sense organs is important too - for example, you need a healthy eye to see a bird in the air.
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Do you mean by realm physical or mental? If it’s physical, is it true that the human and animal realms are separate?
Hi @ahmad.hazairin I’m not quite sure if you meant to reply to my post or the OP, but I’ll reply anyway 
To be honest, I don’t really separate the world like that, but I might be in error there. 
They are separate if we understand ‘realm’ as ‘categories of beings’ - in the same way that dogs and spiders could be seen as separate sub-realms. My suggestion is that the realms seem to overlap in time and space in the suttas, and it is more about awareness of different beings rather than places that we travel to.
This might be relevant?..
an3.76
“If, Ānanda, there were no deeds to result in the sensual realm, would continued existence in the sensual realm still come about?”
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I think I remember Ajahn Punnadhammo discussing this in his series on buddhist cosmology with Ajahn Sona.
He mentioned that the nature of the hell beings had been debated in the past and said something about beings who are punishers, wardens or executioners in this life becoming hell guardians. I’m sure he must have had a textual source for this statement.
I’m personally not sure how this works out as kammic punishment but I guess having to do something over and over again like the hell torture must be horrible but wouldn’t that just create more of the same kamma that led them there in that role? Or is that the punishment, the ongoing and almost impossible escape from that activity?
Anyway I think Ajahn Punnadhammo probably covers it in his cosmology book if folks want to check but I heard it in this video but I don’t have a timestamp for the relevant part unfortunately. Could be at the beginning where he discusses the hell beings or around the 20 min mark where he discusses soldiers.
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The following article may be relevant by Choong Mun-keat on:
Various karmic causes of the suffering of tormented ghosts (SA 508–534 = S 19.1–21), pp. 78-81
in “A comparison of the Chinese and Pāli Saṃyukta/Saṃyuttas on the Venerable Mahā-Maudgalyāyana (Mahā-Moggallāna)”, Buddhist Studies Review, v. 34.1 (2017), pp. 67-84.
PDF:
He mentioned that the nature of the hell beings had been debated in the past and said something about beings who are punishers, wardens or executioners in this life becoming hell guardians. I’m sure he must have had a textual source for this statement.
Sounds like it’s a reference to Vasubandhu. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy page on Vasubandhu:
Next, to defeat the objection that unlike ordinary physical objects, merely apparent objects are not intersubjectively shared by different beings, Vasubandhu provides the counterexample that in hell, demonic entities appear to torment groups of hell beings. This is a case of a shared hallucination. When the objector wonders why the demons might not in fact be real, Vasubandhu appeals to karma theory: Any being with sufficient merit—sufficient “good karma”—to generate a body capable of withstanding the painful fires of hell would never be born into hell in the first place. Any creature in hell that is not suffering must be an apparition generated by the negative karma of the tormented.
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It’s just before the part about soldiers starting at 19min.
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