Six Realms
The Six Realms (rigs drug, “six types of being”) are the classical Buddhist map of samsaric existence:
- Gods (Sanskrit deva, Tibetan lha) — realm of blissful-distraction; obscured by pleasure.
- Demigods (asura, lha ma yin) — realm of jealousy / power-competition.
- Humans (manushya, mi) — realm of mixed-experience; uniquely suited for liberation.
- Animals (tiryak, dud ‘gro) — realm of instinct-dominated existence.
- Hungry Ghosts (preta, yidag) — realm of unsatisfiable craving.
- Hell-Beings (naraka, dmyal ba) — realm of torment / aggression.
The Aro gTér / Nyingma Psychological Reading
Spectrum of Ecstasy Ch.11 footnote 1 supplies the Aro gTér / Nyingma-lineage reading:
“Yidag (preta in Sanskrit) means ‘hungry ghost’. Yidags are one of the six types of being, within the realms of being through which one can transmigrate. These Six Realms are essentially psychological perspectives or referential frames of karmic vision.”
Not literal-realms-as-such, but psychological-modes.
- Each realm names a specific affective-referential frame — a dominant mode of experiencing reality.
- Transmigration between realms = shifts in karmic vision, not literal physical-transmigration.
- A practitioner can experience each realm within one lifetime (or one day) as the dominant-frame shifts with emotional state.
Mapping to the Five Elements
Rough correspondences (not rigid):
- Fire-element fear-of-isolation → hungry ghost mode (unsatisfiable craving; the Ch.8 “no matter how often desire is consummated” diagnostic)
- Water-element fear-of-vulnerability → hell-being mode (aggression-saturated; the Ch.7 “Old Norse” catalogue)
- Air-element fear-of-obliteration → demigod / asura mode (jealous-vigilance; paranoid power-competition)
- Earth-element fear-of-poverty → god-realm or animal-realm mode (materialism; instinct-dominated)
- Space-element bewilderment → animal-realm at its depressive-torpor end; or any realm collapsed into virtual-insentience
The element-neurosis taxonomy of Spectrum of Ecstasy can be read as a refinement of the Six Realms taxonomy: five elements × two modes (distorted / liberated) covers the phenomenological ground the Six Realms earlier mapped.
Karmic Vision — The Technical Term
Ch.11’s footnote uses “karmic vision” — the mode of perceiving that follows from one’s accumulated karmic patterns. Different realms correspond to different karmic visions; experiences within a realm are literal from within that vision, but a mode among modes from the meta-view.
Tantra (per Ch.11 NR): “Tantra deals with the functions of power through accessing pure vision manifestations of the dharmadhatu.” Contrast: shamanism deals with the functions of power through accessing karmic vision of non-human beings (animal, nature-spirit, etc.).
Pure vision (dharmadhātu) is the non-dualistic see-through of karmic-vision into its luminous-ground; karmic vision is the dualistic-reification of that ground into specific-realm-experience.
Practice Implication
Under the psychological-frame reading, the Six Realms are available as diagnostic categories for one’s own experiential states:
- Am I in hungry-ghost mode right now (grasping; unsatisfiable)?
- Am I in demigod mode (jealous; comparing my position to others)?
- Am I in god-realm mode (distracted by pleasure; obscured by comfort)?
Each realm is a specific-form of samsara. The practice is not to escape by transmigration to a better realm but to recognise the karmic-vision-mechanism operating now and allow the sparkling-through to dissolve it.
Relation to Shamanism
Ch.11’s Shamanism-vs-Tantra distinction:
- Shamanism = “accessing the karmic vision of non-human beings” — entering the experiential-frame of another realm’s beings. This is what gives shamans their “medicine” to heal various illnesses.
- Tantra = “accessing pure vision manifestations of the dharmadhatu” — entering the pre-karmic-vision register.
Both can be compassionate; they operate at different structural levels. NR: “In some ways the processes are quite similar.”
Related
- Spectrum of Ecstasy - 16 Ch.11 Five-fold Display — source: footnote 1 definition
- Samsara — the general name for cyclic existence across the Six Realms
- Three Poisons — the karmic-vision-generators whose operations produce specific realms
- Five Elements — the element-neurosis taxonomy overlapping with realm-mapping
- Fear of Isolation — the fire-element engine producing hungry-ghost mode
- Hall of Mirrors — the general distortion-apparatus generating realm-specific karmic-visions
- Nongradual Approach — the view that dissolves the realm-structure altogether
- Aro gTér — the lineage with this psychological-frame reading
- Nyingma — the school