This is a video based on a talk I gave at the Vivekavana Buddhist Society on September 2nd, 2012. The video adds infographics, photographs and annotations to the original sound recording.
The talk looks at the various levels of existence as they are envisioned in Buddhist cosmology, which is quite similar in the Theravada and the Mahayana.
The talk first gives an overview of the planes of existence, and then goes through the main levels from bottom to top: the downfalls, the human world, the sensual god realms, and brahma realms, the pure lands and the formless spheres.
I have included whatever relevant information I could find about these worlds, and the talk shows how knowing these realms can be useful for a person’s understanding of their place in the universe, and how they move between these realms both within this life, and in future lives.
As some of the text is quite small and detailed, I have published the video in HD at 720p, and that is probably the better size to watch it at.
The original infographic that the ones in the video are based on can be found here.
if this video is no longer available please leave a comment so I can update the page
