The Buddhist Universe consists of thirty-one levels, six realms, three spheres, and 8 levels of meditation.
Six realms: Lower Gods, Humans, Titans/Atulas, Ghosts, Animals, Hell
Three Spheres: Sphere of Sense-Desires (kamavacara), Sphere of Pure Form (rupavacara), Sphere of Formlessness (arupavacara)
Thirty-One Levels:
Sphere of Formlessness (arupavacara): an almost indescribably supreme state beyond all shape and form in which beings exist as pure mental energy.
31. Neither Perception nor Non-Perception (Meditation level 8)
30. Nothingness (Meditation level 7)
29. Infinite Consciousness (Meditation level 6)
28. Infinite Space (Meditation level 5)
Sphere of Pure Form (rupavacara): a rarefied spiritual state in which gods perceive and communicate by telepathy.
27-12. Higher Gods (Meditation levels 4,3,2,1): remote and sublime beings who have little involvement with human affairs. They are subject to karma, and are eventually reborn like anyone else. The top heaven levels (levels 23-27) are "Pure Abodes," also known as Non-Returners.
Sphere of Sense-desires (kamavacara)
11-6. Lower Gods: beings, due to their performance of good deeds/karma, enjoy harmonious and blissful states of existence. They frequently appear on earth, and pay their respects to the Buddha and His teachings. Among them are also future Buddhas awaiting their last rebirths on earth.
5. Humans have reason and free will, seen as the middle-way- an appropriate balance between pleasure and suffering.
4. Titans demonic warlike beings, motivated by a lust for power, constantly seeking conquests.
3. Ghosts are unhappy spirits hovering around the fringes of the human worlds and can be glimpsed as shadowy forms; formerly human beings bound to the earth by their strong attachments.
2. Animals beings governed by brute instinct, lacking intellectual capacity.
1. Hell: in Buddhism, hell is not a place of final damnation, but a temporary state (either extremely hot or extremely cold) from which a being can be released when the evil karma that sent one to hell has run its course.
The universe is divided into two categories: the physical universe (bhajana) and the beings (sattva) which inhabit it. The physical universe is formed by the interaction of the five elements (earth, water, air, fire and space). Through this interaction there evolve "world systems" which are found in six directions of the universe (north, south, west, east, above and below). The world systems undergo four-stage cycles of evolution and decline lasting billions of years: coming into being/formation, endurance/existence, slowly disintegrating, and destruction in a great cataclysm. In due course the world systems evolve again to complete a vast cycle known as a "great eon." The beings who inhabit the physical universes are not just caretakers of their environment. They also help create their worlds, and their moral status may determine the fate of their world system (Buddhist thinking on ecology).
Time is conceived as cyclic, rather than linear. The Judaeo-Christian tradition attributes the Fall of Man to pride and disobedience; Buddhism locates the origin of human suffering in desire. Time is relative, and is perceived differently by different beings. A human lifetime seems like a day to gods of the lower levels.
Source:
Damien Keown, Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013),
pp. 33-39.
