Light of Kailash 27 | Sometimes Hell is the Big Stick: Teaching Buddhist Truths with Narrative
Saturday, Dec. 13th, 2025 | 4:30 PM UK time | Online via Zoom
Stories of hell abound in the Buddhist tradition—as our speaker tells her students, “Buddhists simply have the best hells.” These stories do important work to shape identity, imagine alternate realities, and frame our actions here on the earthly plane. Through an analysis of The Teaching to Venerable Nanda on Entry into the Womb, the sixth painting of Drugu Choegyal Rinpoche’s Bardo Series, which depicts the ordination of Ananda and his instruction on cosmological realities by the Buddha, this talk discusses the central role narrative has in elaborating Buddhist truths. Connecting the story of Ananda to other important (and often overlooked) Buddhist narratives, Dr. Mikles will examine how the unique elements of story are central to framing Buddhist doctrine as something simultaneously personal and universal.
The Teaching to Venerable Nanda on Entry into the Womb
This painting by The Eighth Drugu Choegyal Rinpoche is inspired by the Ārya Nanda Gabhava Kantinira Deśa Sūtra. It depicts the story of Nanda, the Buddha’s younger relative, who was deeply attached to his beautiful wife, Sundarika. Out of great love and compassion, the Buddha employed various skillful means to free Nanda from his attachment to worldly desires and to inspire him to follow the path of Dharma.
In the story, the Buddha reveals to Nanda the realms of heaven and hell, showing him the empty cauldron in hell awaiting him should he remain bound by desire. This powerful vision awakens in Nanda the determination to renounce worldly life and enter the spiritual path.
The lower part of the painting illustrates how consciousness enters the womb at the time of rebirth, showing that the form one takes depends upon karma. The transmigrating being may appear in different shapes and colors—beautiful or unpleasant—according to its karmic tendencies. For instance, the Bardo of Existence for a hell being appears as a burnt tree stump, for hungry ghosts as water, for gods and humans as golden light, and for beings in the form realm as white radiance. Bardo beings may have two arms, many arms, no legs, or multiple legs—their birth form reflecting the karma that propels them into the next life.
About the Speaker
Dr. Natasha L. Mikles is assistant professor of religion at Texas State University, where she teaches courses on Buddhism, Chinese religions, death and dying, and, of course, hell. She is a globally-recognized expert on the Gesar epic and author of Shattered Grief: How the Pandemic Transformed the Spirituality of Death in America. She enjoys whiskey, horror movies, and introducing students to the Utpala hell realm.
Registration on this page is required to receive the access link for the Zoom event. The recording will be made available on YouTube for those unable to attend in real time.