A team of penguins goes in search of pyramids in hellishly cold realms Dante explores in the Divine Comedy from ancient Buddhist lore.
The Cold "Hells"
Arbuda – the "blister" purgatory or hell (naraka). This is a dark, frozen plain surrounded by icy mountains and continually swept by blizzards. Inhabitants of this plane of existence arise fully grown and abide life-long naked and alone, while the cold raises blisters on their bodies. The length of life in this unfortunate realm is said to be the time it would take to empty a barrel of sesame seeds if one only took out a single seed every hundred years.
Nirarbuda – the "burst blister" purgatory. This realm is even colder, and here the blisters burst open, leaving the beings' bodies covered with freezing blood and pus.Aṭaṭa – the purgatory of shivering. Here the beings shiver in the cold, making an aṭ-aṭ-aṭ sound with their mouths.
Hahava – the realm of lamentation. Here the beings lament in the cold, going ha, ho in pain.
Huhuva – the realm of chattering teeth. Here beings shiver as their teeth chatter, making the sound hu, hu.
Utpala – the "blue lotus" unfortunate realm. Here the intense cold makes skin turn blue like the color of an utpala waterlily.
Padma – the "lotus" realm. In this place the blizzard cracks open the frozen skin leaving one raw and bloody.
Mahāpadma – the "great lotus" realm. Here the whole body cracks into pieces and the internal organs are exposed to the cold and they also crack.
The Fire Sermon
"Everything is burning! What is this 'everything' that is burning? The eye [as well as the other five bases of consciousness -- ear, nose, tongue, body, mind] is burning."Visible forms are burning. Consciousness born at the eye [ear, nose, tongue, body, mind] is burning. Contact born at the eye is burning.
"And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the eye -- whether experienced as pleasure, pain, or neither-pleasure-nor-pain -- that too is burning."Burning with what? It is burning with the fire of passion (greed, lust, craving), the fire of aversion (hate, fear, revulsion), the fire of delusion (wrong view, ignorance, confusion).
"It is burning, I tell you, with birth, aging, and death, with sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, distress, and despair!" (SN 35.28)
