Picture this: Your morning begins with a jolt of anxiety from your phone’s notifications. Traffic is unbearable, and you’re certain every driver is deliberately trying to ruin your day. At work, each email feels like a personal attack, and every deadline is a tightening noose. You return home exhausted yet spend hours scrolling through social media, comparing your life to carefully curated highlights of others, feeling increasingly inadequate and angry.
Sound familiar? According to Buddhist philosophy, you might be experiencing what’s known as the hell realm – but not in the way Western traditions typically imagine hell.
In Buddhist cosmology, the hell realm isn’t a place of eternal damnation or physical torture. Instead, it’s a state of mind characterized by intense suffering, paranoia, and aggression. Those in the hell realm are said to be trapped in a perpetual cycle between searing heat and bone-chilling cold, symbolizing the exhausting extremes of emotional reactivity that define this state of being. What makes this concept particularly relevant today is that we don’t need to die to experience it; we might be living in it right now.
Here are the tell-tale signs you’re caught in the hell realm:
First, there’s the perpetual sense that everyone is against you. That barista who got your order wrong? They must hate you. The colleague who didn’t respond to your email immediately? They’re obviously plotting your downfall. In the hell realm, coincidences become conspiracies, and random events transform into personal vendettas.
Then, there’s the endless cycle of rage and righteousness. You find yourself constantly justified in your anger, collecting grievances like precious gems. The world becomes a battlefield where you’re simultaneously the victim and the righteous warrior, always ready for the next fight.
But perhaps the most insidious aspect of the hell realm is how it becomes self-perpetuating. Your anger makes people withdraw, confirming your suspicion that everyone is against you. Your paranoia leads to defensive behavior, which prompts others to respond negatively, thereby “proving” your worldview correct.
The good news? According to Buddhist teaching, the hell realm, like all realms, is temporary. The first step to escaping it is recognizing you’re there. The second is understanding that the walls of this prison are built by our own minds.
Consider this: When was the last time you assumed good intentions from others? When did you last interpret an ambiguous situation in the most positive light possible? If you can’t remember, you might be deeper in the hell realm than you realize.
Breaking free requires more than positive thinking – it demands a fundamental shift in how we perceive and interact with the world. It means choosing curiosity over judgment, compassion over condemnation, not just toward others but toward ourselves.
The choice to step out of this realm isn’t made once but moment by moment, interaction by interaction. It’s in choosing to believe that the person who cut you off in traffic might be rushing to an emergency and that your friend’s failure to return your call might be due to their struggles rather than a reflection of your worth.
Liberation from the hell realm begins not with changing the world but with changing how we see it. In doing so, we might find that the world itself begins to transform.
After all, as Buddhist wisdom suggests, our experience of reality is largely shaped by our minds. The question isn’t whether hell exists—it’s whether we choose to continue living in it.
If you recognize yourself in the hell realm — the constant vigilance, the rage, the exhausting sense that everyone is against you — therapy can help you understand the patterns driving it and begin to step out of the cycle.
Schedule a consultation with Dr. Michael Brustein, PsyD.
Dr. Michael Brustein is a licensed NYC psychologist specializing in anxiety and depression therapy for high-achieving professionals in New York City. Using an integrative approach that combines psychoanalytic insight with practical strategies, he helps executives and professionals understand the hidden costs of constant worry and perfectionism. His practice focuses on helping clients move from symptom management to deep, lasting transformation.