A Guided Tour of Hell


At the Asian Art Museum, there was one exhibit that drew my attention very powerfully. This was "A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir" by Samuel Bercholz, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, and Pema Namdol Thaye, a Tibetan multimedia artist. Museum visitors weren't allowed to take photos of the artwork. Instead we were invited to go on a guided tour of the Guided Tour so we could better understand what the exhibit was all about.

NB: I have very little knowledge about Buddhism so I'm writing about how I understood the topics covered by the exhibit.

Bercholz is a teacher of two major schools of Tibetan Buddhism: Nyingma and Kagyu. The lessons that are being promoted by these schools were similar but the emphasis was different: Nyingma is focused on "the view" while Kagyu is focused on "one's true nature" (1). Apparently, Bercholz had a near-death experience in which he had visions of hell. He enlisted Pema Namdol to put his mind's images on paper. The results, as I was looking through them, reminded me a lot about Dante's Inferno (not the Dan Brown version but rather the Italian masterpiece). There was a piece that showed bodies being sucked into a void surrounded by red clouds; these looked like they could be an interpretation of Dante's nine layers of hell (2). The other paintings by Pema Namdol showed the equivalent of Dante's "deadly sins" portrayed by different people: among them were a suicide bomber, a socialite, a nuclear scientist, and a warlord. In life, each of these characters were successful in what they wanted to do. But in the afterlife, their attachment to Earthly possessions or their obsessions was keeping them back from getting out of hell. There was respite and hope amid all the pain, however. Just like Dante being guided by Virgil, Bercholz was guided through the underworld by a silvery, wispy being until he was able to escape this hellish realm.

The exhibit sparked an insightful conversation among the patrons who I was with on the docent tour. We saw how different the Buddhist views of hell are from the Christian views. It also gave me a few ideas on why Buddhism became such a widespread religion in Asia. For people who face challenges in life, Buddhism gives them hope that the next Earthly life would be much, much better. In some ways, Christianity provides the same promise; however, the promise of a better life is not for the physical body.

I'm still trying to get my head around this exhibit. But one thing's for certain: this guided tour through hell was not as terrifying as I expected.

References:
(1) https://learning.tergar.org/course_library/mingyur-rinpoches-monthly-teachings/the-differences-between-the-four-tibetan-buddhist-schools/
(2) http://historylists.org/art/9-circles-of-hell-dantes-inferno.html

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