The Journey Through Hell
Many have been documented in their near-death experiences of seeing that white light, their loved ones who had passed or the most fascinating, their visits to heaven, before being sent back into existence to share their journeys with the many who will listen and heed their messages. There are, however, fewer who share the same journey as Samuel Bercholz, the journey to hell and be able to return to share their experiences.
Samuel Bercholz had achieved much in life by the standards of our society: a successful career as the founder of Shambala Publications, harmonious personal relationships and fulfilment in spirituality as a student of highly realised Gurus, such as Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Thinley Norbu Rinpoche. In the airport for the planned trip with his Guru, Thinley Norbu Rinpoche, little did Samuel expect the detour that will change his life and thoughts forever. In the throes of an onslaught of a heart attack, Samuel was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance and was immediately taken into surgery for a sextuple coronary bypass. His mind-blowing journey began when Samuel collapsed from a blood infection in the aftermath of his surgery. This is where he was taken on a personal visit to the place of people’s greatest fear, hell!
“Momo Drollo.” A painting by Pema Namdol Thaye, featured in the book ‘A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir’ by Samuel Bercholz.
Guided and protected by a luminous being whom he called the Buddha of Hell, Samuel witnessed the torments and agonies suffered by the hell-beings, trapped in their anger, hatred, contempt, disbelief and strong grasping for endless cycles of time. Samuel’s description so aptly explains the traps of consciousness that the hell-beings are in.
“Unfortunately, beings in hell suffer from extreme aggression and tend to overlook the textures and signs that might lead to liberation. Hell-beings always want to escape, because everything is so unbearable, but alas, their escape attempts lead to further intensification of hell’s sufferings. Lashing out just causes more pain and being quiet and internalizing everything just causes freezing. All attempts are a complete conundrum.”
Source: Bercholz, Samuel, “A Guided Tour of Hell”, Colorado, Shambhala Publications, 2016, p. 137
“Inferno.” A painting by Pema Namdol Thaye, featured in the book ‘A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir’ by Samuel Bercholz.
Despite the horrors of hell, it is also in hell that Samuel experienced the great compassion of the enlightened ones. He was shown how the enlightened ones had left many symbols.
“The Buddha of Hell, through his uncontrived nature, continuously touched each part of hell and left a mark there. Sometimes it was the mark of the bright halo that emanated from his gray form, sometimes his footsteps or handprints, whose texture all the beings could feel. Symbols of water might appear in the hot hells, and symbols of flames in the cold hells; other symbols included a Wheel of Dharma or a rainbow. It was possible for any of the hell-beings to stumble upon these marks, which would have the effect of casting doubt on their erroneous belief that hell is forever. The realization that a way out of one’s suffering is possible is truly the saving grace of hell.”
Source: Bercholz, Samuel, “A Guided Tour of Hell”, Colorado, Shambhala Publications, 2016, p. 137
How fortunate that Samuel was to receive such blessings that propel his spiritual realisations, especially the true value of his Gurus and the Dharma he received. Everyone knows that the life will end, an inevitable fact that no one can escape. Yet, many refuse to acknowledge and avoid recognising the time bomb ticking away. Even Samuel who realised the non-duality from his journey through hell still felt the deep shame of having gone to hell and for 10 years, was not prepared to share his valuable lesson with others. Samuel’s journey is not one that people want to go through and we should listen with gratitude to his sharing and reflect deeply on what he bore witness to, his realisations and his later transformation. Realise the importance of our Guru who plays such a pivotal role in our spiritual development as had Samuel’s in his.
Click on the “Play” button below to listen to Samuel Bercholz’s personal account of his near-death experience and sojourn in hell.
Disclaimer: The audio files above belong to its creator, and is made available here for strictly educational, non-commercial purposes only. No profit is being made from making it available.
About the Book
The cover of the book “A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir”, a true account of Sam Bercholz’s near-death experience. Click to enlarge
Sam Bercholz was devoting himself to teaching Buddhism after retiring from his successful publishing company, when suddenly he was blindsided by a heart attack. As he succumbed to clinical death in the hospital, he found himself entering a classic near-death experience–but the last place he expected to end up was Buddhist hell. And not just one hell, but numerous horrific hell regions, both hot and cold, where countless beings suffer unspeakable pain due to their own mental conceptions.
A sublime being appears and tells Sam: You have been brought here to witness and understand the suffering of human beings. Thus begins a nightmarish expedition that evokes both horror and awakening as Sam is guided though a gallery of hell-denizens by a feminine embodiment of wisdom, who ultimately redeems him and returns him to life.
Powerful storytelling is matched by the illustrations of master painter Pema Namdol Thaye. Comic-book drawings illustrate Sam’s life story and hospital ordeal, while fantastic color paintings of his hell experience bring a startling modern spirit of imagination to the sacred art of Asia.
Source: https://www.penguin.com.au/books/a-guided-tour-of-hell-9781611801422
Selected Quotes from “A Guided Tour of Hell”
“My experience showed me that there are characteristics common to all the beings of hell: they possess a thoroughgoing materialism, combined with nihilism to varying degrees, and attitudes of hatred, disdain, and utter lack of concern or caring for other beings.”
Source: Bercholz, Samuel, “A Guided Tour of Hell”, Colorado, Shambhala Publications, 2016, p. X
“I had no eyes to see. I had no ears to hear, no nose to smell, no tongue to taste, no skin to feel… no voice to speak. All I had was a memory of those senses and those sense perceptions.”
Source: Bercholz, Samuel, “A Guided Tour of Hell”, Colorado, Shambhala Publications, 2016, p. 29
“Yet, though I had no eyes, a world appeared before me. My consciousness expanded from the tiny strings of light and into a complete cosmos made of sulfurous gases. Here was an alternative world, thoroughly different from the earthly world I had left behind. My senses were overwhelmed by the unbearable odor of burning flesh and extremes of heat and cold beyond imagination.”
Source: Bercholz, Samuel, “A Guided Tour of Hell”, Colorado, Shambhala Publications, 2016, p. 29
“With a sensation like the sudden flash of a whip, the veil separating life from death was ripped away, and my consciousness was pulled violently into the realm beyond life. Translucent bindings, like strings of light, first lassoed my legs, then seized my whole being, and I was slammed forward. I felt myself hurled down and down. There was no ‘me,’ just a center of consciousness descending farther and farther… falling into untold depths.”
Source: Bercholz, Samuel, “A Guided Tour of Hell”, Colorado, Shambhala Publications, 2016, p. 29
“Amid these intense sensations, a second display arose in shimmering waves of agonizing pain— the images of contorted faces, writhing bodies and ghastly body parts, festering entrails, disembodied thumbs and noses, tormented animals of every kind, some of them ripped into pieces, and even ants and other insects whose extreme suffering was palpable to me. All of them — all of it — was a mass of unspeakable pain. With the constant mirage-like wavering of images, I could not discern anything as either real or unreal.”
Source: Bercholz, Samuel, “A Guided Tour of Hell”, Colorado, Shambhala Publications, 2016, p. 29
“Space had no ordinary dimensionality, no up or down, no right or left. Only the habit of direction was there to produce the continuous sense of falling, but without any place to fall.”
Source: Bercholz, Samuel, “A Guided Tour of Hell”, Colorado, Shambhala Publications, 2016, p. 30
“The sufferings of each and every one of these beings are due to their own mental conceptions. In fact, their suffering in hell is an unbroken continuation of their own states of mind during life, which persisted even after the death of the physical body.”
Source: Bercholz, Samuel, “A Guided Tour of Hell”, Colorado, Shambhala Publications, 2016, p. 34
“Beings enter hell as a result of the sum total of their own life at the time of death. Whatever they brought to their lifetime — including all actions, thoughts, belief systems, desires, and habits of clarity or obscuration — all continues beyond the passing of the physical body.”
Source: Bercholz, Samuel, “A Guided Tour of Hell”, Colorado, Shambhala Publications, 2016, p. 34
“The first-person glimpses of hell described in this book made an unforgettable impact like no other. It’s not that I perceived them as a scary warning to change my ways. Rather, the very ordinariness of hell was impressed on me — the recognition that the hellish inclinations of the ordinary mind are not reserved for exceptionally bad people. Above all, it was a lesson in the importance of kindness — a lesson almost too simple to seem significant, yet it holds the key to a happy life, and even to liberation itself…”
Source: Bercholz, Samuel, “A Guided Tour of Hell”, Colorado, Shambhala Publications, 2016, p. 135
“No hell is a totally forsaken experience, because within each kind of hell there is a Buddha — not a savior in the Western sense, but a manifestation of our innate wisdom — to awaken and guide us. In hell, a Buddha may appear as a subtle or formless presence. The same presence emanates sometimes as a female figure and sometimes as a male figure. To rouse us from our hellish stupor, whatever forms are needed will appear — whether peaceful and soothing, or wild and wrathful…”
Source: Bercholz, Samuel, “A Guided Tour of Hell”, Colorado, Shambhala Publications, 2016, p. 136
“Through the Buddha’s hand, I felt natural compassion and caring for all the hell-beings. He was not a god who had created the beings or meted out their suffering, so it wasn’t really possible for the Buddha to save them; rather he offered his wisdom so that they could rise from this worst of all places to the higher realms and even to complete liberation from the rounds of all the realms. The Buddha of Hell, through his uncontrived nature, continuously touched each part of hell and left a mark there. Sometimes it was the mark of the bright halo that emanated from his gray form, sometimes his footsteps or handprints, whose texture all the beings could feel. Symbols of water might appear in the hot hells, and symbols of flames in the cold hells; other symbols included a Wheel of Dharma or a rainbow. It was possible for any of the hell-beings to stumble upon these marks, which would have the effect of casting doubt on their erroneous belief that hell is forever. The realization that a way out of one’s suffering is possible is truly the saving grace of hell.”
Source: Bercholz, Samuel, “A Guided Tour of Hell”, Colorado, Shambhala Publications, 2016, p. 137
“Demolition.” A painting by Pema Namdol Thaye, featured in the book ‘A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir’ by Samuel Bercholz. Click to enlarge
“Gates of Hell.” A painting by Pema Namdol Thaye, featured in the book ‘A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir’ by Samuel Bercholz. Click to enlarge
“City of Cold Hells.” A painting by Pema Namdol Thaye, from the book ‘A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir’ by Samuel Bercholz. Click to enlarge
“Six Realms.” A painting by Pema Namdol Thaye, featured in the book ‘A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir’ by Samuel Bercholz. Click to enlarge
“Triptych.” A painting by Pema Namdol Thaye, featured in the book ‘A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir’ by Samuel Bercholz. Click to enlarge
“Vortex.” A painting by Pema Namdol Thaye, featured in the book ‘A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir’ by Samuel Bercholz. Click to enlarge
“Border.” A painting by Pema Namdol Thaye, featured in the book ‘A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir’ by Samuel Bercholz. Click to enlarge
“Yearning.” A painting by Pema Namdol Thaye, featured in the book ‘A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir’ by Samuel Bercholz. Click to enlarge
“Transcend.” A painting by Pema Namdol Thaye, featured in the book ‘A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir’ by Samuel Bercholz. Click to enlarge
“Liberation.” A painting by Pema Namdol Thaye, featured in the book ‘A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir’ by Samuel Bercholz. Click to enlarge
Sources:
- “A Guided Tour of Hell”, Shambhala.com, 5 June 2016, [website], https://www.shambhala.com/a-guided-tour-of-hell-3534.html (accessed 6 January 2019).
- Bercholz S., ‘A Guided Tour Of Hell: A Graphic Memoir’, Colorado, Shambhala Publications, 2016
- “Take a Tour of Hell with Renowned Tibetan Artist Pema Namdol Thaye”, Cherrybomb, 21 November 2018, [website], https://dangerousminds.net/comments/take_a_tour_of_hell_with_renowned_tibetan_artist_pema_namdol_thaye (accessed 6 January 2019).
- “Guided Tour Of Hell by Samuel Bercholz”, Penguin.com.au, 15 December 2016, [website], https://www.penguin.com.au/books/a-guided-tour-of-hell-9781611801422 (accessed 6 January 2019).
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Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this audio book with us. This is a very interesting account from someone who has been to hell and came back. Mr. Samuel was invited by Buddha Ksirtigabha to visit the hell realm and so he can come back and tell us how it is like in hell. Knowing how it is in hell, it should create fear in us to not to do bad things to create the cause to take rebirth there.
To be in hell, there is a lot of sufferings. One has to go through a lot of tortures over and over again for the wrongs that we have done. Some naively think that committing suicide we can end our sufferings but we actually have to suffer more in the hell realm. The attachment we have, the anger in us all become our suffering when we end up in hell. We have to experience burning and pain over and over again. It feels extremely lonely and negative in the hell realm. All the anger we have, the pain we inflict on others, they come back as suffering to us when we are in hell.
Just think, when we are still in human form we may suffer from our negative karma but we still have the opportunity to purify and collect merits. We have to be regretful of the wrong actions we have done and promise not to do them again. If we end up in the hell realm, there is no way we can purify our negative karma but to experience it. Hell is not a pleasant place to be, we must always remind ourselves to practice Dharma while we can.
Thank you, Rinpoche and blog team to sharing this interesting post. It is very interesting to read about how this person saw the hell and he is able to remember what he saw and write it down when he regained consciousness.
Interestingly, what he wrote resembles the hells that are being described in the Lamrim taught by Pabongka Rinpoche. The resemblance is uncanny and it is believable that he actually did see the hell himself.
What he said ” My experience showed me that there are characteristics common to all the beings of hell: they possess thoroughgoing materialism, combined with nihilism to varying degrees, and attitudes of hatred, disdain, and utter lack of concern or caring for other beings.” is exactly the qualities that will lead us to be reborn in the hells when we die.
The pictures he painted serve as a reminder to those who see them that there is a life after death and it will not be pretty if we continue to be the person that only cares about oneself and harbors alot of negative emotions. The 6 realms that he painted is very graphic and accurate because you can’t find any trace of happiness in it.
This true account of Sam Bercholz’s near-death experience of what happens when we die. In the aftermath of heart surgery, Sam, a long time Buddhist practitioner and teacher, is surprised to find himself in the lowest realms of karmic rebirth. Horrific and harrowing indeed what is going to happen to us after death. , we could imagine that very moment . Well reading this article , I can say its it is a generous gift, reminding us of what we need to do matters urgently before its too late. Life is short and precious , learning, and practicing Dharma, preparing for death is the best choice. I am fortunate to receive and appreciate what I have learned from Rinpoche’s blog , a little by little a day to increase my Dharma knowledge. Learning Dharma has in fact changed my life .
Thank you Rinpoche with folded hands for this sharing.
Hell is not somewhere outside of us but is inside of us. It is the continuation of our thoughts even after our death. In short, it comes from our mind.
Just like the author has mentioned, daily we continuously entering hell within us. We enter the hell many times through conflict, argument and depression. Also actually one can find the six realms in our daily life. Like those royals in their palaces enjoying the life of God, the spirit is like those who constantly finds food to eat and those who live in dessert or war torn areas are like in Hell!
You know, hell is not for bad people only, a truth to be told. When you have heard the stories, really there’s nothing to accomplish or achieve. Even a successful person such as scientist, a diligent and good housewife, a social butterfly or even as great sculptor that builds temples, that serves only to make the Ego bigger in one way or another. What to accomplish? Their surrounding, their pains and people that they met all come from the mind after they have entered “Hell”, a self made hell . This is the reason why we should take care of our mind as these thoughts will continue to exist even after our eventual death. This literally confirmed and support the idea on the need for verbalising the four immesurable prayers at the beginning of our prayer. Love, Joy, compassion and equanimity. That’s what will liberate us. I think I will listen to these stories again in future.
The author, Samuel mentioned that “The Buddha of Hell, through his uncontrived nature, continuously touched each part of hell and left a mark there such as the symbol of water appearing in the hot hells, and symbols of flames in the cold hells”. I believe, when we do prayer daily, we also will leave marks there (this is true if those who has the initiations, they can generated themselves as deity). Taking example like offering lamp, we will read in the passage mentioning that “may the light illuminated the darkness of ignorance of all sentient beings, from the peak of samsara down to the most torturous hell. “ Also, we have different mantras can be offered in our daily action such as washing and even excreating. Actually comes to think about it, not only those Hell beings didn’t see the symbols, we as a human being also failed to grasp the Buddha’s teachings and their many manifestations.
Maybe I should get this book as well. Thank you so much Rinpoche for sharing this.
Thank you Rinpoche and team for sharing.
We must understand the cycle of existance and is stated in lamrin.
It is extremely suffering in hell realm and they constant trying to escape from it.
Can imagine the hot and cold which is unbearable and yet they have to stay in that situation for thousands years.
We as human now should appreciate and continue to purify and practise dharma.
May all those that are suffering be has less suffering.???
Very interesting pictures from a person who experienced going to hell. Must be a very frightening experience i guess. Sincere gratitude to this great sharing from Samual’s journey and his transformation and realisations the importance of our Guru who plays such a pivotal role in our spiritual development as had Samuel’s in his. Thank you very much Rinpoche and blog team for this interesting and meaningful article.????