The Ten Worlds

At the behest of my other half, who has an uncanny but sometimes annoying sense of what I need and when I need it, I started reading a book by Tina Turner called “Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good” this afternoon.  The book focuses on Turner’s fifty-year spiritual journey towards inner peace, mainly through her exploration and practice of Buddhist teachings.  I’m only about three chapters in, but already I’m hooked.  

What I’ve learned so far is that according to Buddhist philosophy, there are ten categories of our life conditions called The Ten Worlds, which “are actually life states that we all experience internally, and they range from the very worst to the very best of human behavior.”  When we become conscious of these conditions, we can change them, and that can lead to happiness.  

 

Turner goes on to compare this eastern philosophy to western psychology, in particular, Abraham Maslow’s theory of self-actualization and the hierarchy of needs.  While there are some similarities, there is also a very distinct difference—namely, self-actualization is only achieved through an iterative, stepwise process, while according to the eastern philosophy, “we can move from one condition to any other, without having to experience any intermediate condition.”  So, the eastern philosophy is much more fluid and, according to Turner (and I very much agree), “liberating because it tells us that even if we are the condition of Hell, we have the potential to instantly manifest any of the higher states, even Buddhahood.”

 

I needed a minute to wrap my head around and process this, and being a very visual learning, created the images below to really drive it home for myself.  It makes total sense to me now, at least as a theoretical construct.  But I guess I’m going to have to keep reading to figure out how to put it to practice.  I have a feeling that Ms. Turner has a lot to teach me, and I suspect I’ll be posting more on this as I continue to read…



Comments