HEAVEN
By Buddhadasa Bhikkhu
"Heaven"
in everyday language means some wonderful, highly attractive, celestial
realm up above. Spend a certain amount of money in merit making and
you're entitled to one mansion in heaven, where there are angels by the
hundreds. In Dhamma language, however, "heaven" refers first of all to
infatuating sensual bliss of the highest order. This is the lower
heaven, the heaven of sensuality. Higher up is the heaven called the
Brahmaloka, where there are no objects of sensuality. It is a state of
mental well-being that results from the absence of any disturbing
sensual object. It is as if a certain person with a hunger for sense
objects had indulged himself until becoming thoroughly fed up with all
sense objects. Then he would want only to remain quite empty, still,
untouched. This is the state of freedom from sensuality, the condition
of the Brahma gods in the Brahmaloka. The ordinary heavens are full up
with sensuality, the highest of them, the Paranimmitavasavatti heaven,
being completely full of sensuality. The heavens of the Brahmaloka,
however, are devoid of disturbance from sensuality, though the "self",
the "I" still persists.
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