
5 Buddhist Levels of Consciousness
Given the undistinguished place assigned human consciousness in this system, one would not expect Buddhist texts to agree on the exact number of conscious states (dhatus, realms, planes.) There seems to be a consensus that there are four arupadhatus or “formless realms” and ten kamadhatus or “desire realms.” The number of rupadhatus or “form realms,” (localization without materialization,) however, ranges from sixteen to twenty-two; since no human can claim to have experienced any of these, even this degree of unanimity seems remarkable. There are also five cold and eight hot narakas (gruesome hells or purgatories;) these, however, do not count as discrete levels of consciousness since Buddhism already characterizes suffering as the essence of samsaric human existence. A more detailed enumeration of these “ontological states” is available at: https://templemountains.org/80.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cosmology .