“Amitabha!” Having pressed my palms together and given thanks to the Magistrate, I departed riding a white lotus flower for home.
15 / The Painful Retribution of Frivolous Speech — The Glass‑Computer Hell Where Thorny Snakes Tear off Condemned Souls’ Tongues
Grateful for the empowerment of the Buddha, I departed riding a white lotus flower.
“Amitabha! I, Ayù, press my palms together and pay homage to you, Magistrate!” “Magistrate! Today I came across an article on a website about healthy‑diet topics. Its author, a nutrition expert, held well‑developed theories on diet, drew upon diverse scientific data, and possessed a deep understanding of wholesome eating. He wrote an allegory describing how to turn food into joyful, nourishing delicacies. His wording was concise, vivid and thoughtfully crafted. Teaching people to value wholesome eating was in itself a fine theme. Yet he framed the whole process as an analogy for wholesome sexual indulgence. His explicit language stirred all kinds of lustful illusory fancies and disturbed proper mindfulness. Reading this piece, I truly felt pity for the author. He had devoted so much time researching dietary theories, only to publish such writing online.”
I asked the Magistrate: “If mortals utter words of this kind to arouse lustful thoughts and misdeeds in others, will they fall into hell for retribution? If such a hell exists, I would also like to visit it.”
The Magistrate said, “When living people employ exaggerated, frivolous words that stir evil thoughts and deeds in others, or utter speech that defiles the spiritual nature; or use honey‑tongued, deceitful words masking malice beneath smiles; or indulge in pleasing yet hollow sophistry, mockery and other scattered, useless talk; or tell bawdy jokes in daily life that bewitch minds, stir lust and arouse craving for sensual pleasures; or compose desire‑fueled songs, romantic novels, films, television shows, song‑and‑dance performances, music and paintings with indecent content and wording, which cause youths to grow in greed, hatred, stupidity, and incite killing, stealing, sexual misconduct and false speech, robbing people of right mindfulness — all these constitute the transgression of frivolous speech.
“Should mortals who commit frivolous speech pass away, they shall fall into the Glass‑Computer Hell for punishment. This hell is one of the hells within the false speech domain. Frivolous speech goes hand‑in‑hand with greed, hatred, ignorance and arrogance. It defiles one’s spiritual nature imperceptibly. For the sake of time, let us go and visit it now.”
We swiftly crossed the central part of the hell. We caught faint sight of two great serpents belonging to the false‑speech hell‑zone. Ah! They were the two huge serpents of the False Speech Hell. Then we slowly descended toward the ground. As we came down, a highly modern hell of reflective glass came clearly into view. This hell looked distinctly avant‑garde. Yet its grim atmosphere was rent by shrill glass‑screeching noises mixed with tormented wails; the racket was deafening.
The gateway of this hell was splendidly adorned. The varied color scheme of its inscriptions gave no hint of horror. Were it not for the piercing cries of suffering and the nether chill permeating the place, one would hardly know one stood at the gate of a hell. We followed the yaksha inside to observe the torments within.
There were many small transparent glass chambers in this hell, and each condemned soul endured torment within its own glass room. The pace of suffering differed among the condemned souls. Most of the computers on the left were of the red variant, so the torments for the condemned souls unfolded more swiftly. All the computers on the right were black, and their torments proceeded at a slower rate.