This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Beauty and Change; Realms (4 of 5): Deva Realm. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Beauty and Change; Dharmette: Realms (4 of 5): Deva Realm - Kim Allen

The following talk was given by Kim Allen at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on March 05, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Beauty and Change

Welcome everyone. Nice to see all of you here. We'll continue today on our voyage through the realms. In these meditations, I'm making an attempt for us to touch into each of the five realms in some way. Obviously, they're fairly complex. They're whole worlds that our mind creates. We can only do so much in a short meditation, and everyone will maybe experience it somewhat differently. Today the invitation is to enter a very beautiful realm of goodness, happiness, and peace, and we'll each find our way into that. So that's the invitation, and as always, you're invited to participate or do your own thing as you like.

Let's start settling in for meditation. Finding a posture that's going to be easeful for your body as much as possible, while still allowing a mental alertness. Bringing the attention inward through closing the eyes, and sensing into the support of what you're sitting on. Your seat against the chair, or cushion, or bed, or bench. Noticing that you're being upheld by that, and by the earth ultimately. Letting yourself soften into the natural pull of gravity. And as you relax the muscles that artificially try to hold us, just let yourself be supported. There can be a natural uplift, opening, or straightening of the body as we tune into the supportive energy that's from inside the body.

Letting the face and the eyes be soft. Releasing holding in the jaw and the throat. Softening the shoulders, so that the upper body is really held by the strength of the spine in the upper back. Just the natural solidity of the bones. The shoulders themselves can soften and drop. Softening the arms and the hands.

Sensing into the torso, especially the heart area, and inviting some softness, gentleness, and flexibility in the chest and upper back area. If there is any tightness or ache, letting that be there. Bringing a softness of mind about that down through the belly, inviting some easing of the tension we tend to hold, even if it's just one layer here. Seeing if our attention itself can have a caring presence to the energies of the torso area.

And then extending attention down through the legs and the feet. Letting those be easy. Can you have a sense of care for your body? A sense of its okayness, that it's doing the best it can. Softening any of our usual judgments that it's not the right body, that it should be more of this, or should be less of that.

Sensing the movement of the breathing through the body. The life breath that brings aliveness to all of our cells, muscles, and organs. The movement of breath is also the evidence of aliveness, the expression of aliveness. Appreciating any sense of vitality that comes from the breath. And intentionally bringing forth in the mind a quality of awareness, mindfulness, our ability to be present and know what is occurring. Quite an amazing ability, actually.

As we sit and breathe, bringing the breath more deliberately into the area of the heart, evoking a sense of care for this being here, for yourself. To love, goodwill, to the degree that it's available. A very natural wish that life can go well and can go smoothly. A wish to be free from enmity, free from pain, free from troubling mind states. May this being live in peace.

Inviting also an appreciation of the Dharma¹. Whatever that evokes for you, an appreciation that you have encountered meditation and these teachings in your life. Maybe an appreciation that you have the ability to practice, that you've met some wise teachers. That is actually quite a rare thing. Having some sense of that beauty in your life, maybe it evokes a smile.

Rather than that only being a mental reflection, see if you can breathe this sense of appreciation and love for this being all through your body, all through the cells, and all the little nerve endings. Letting there be a wholeness to whatever degree of well-being you can sense at this moment.

Then letting go of any deliberate reflection or directing of attention and simply resting in any ease, beauty, or peace that's present. Inclining the mind toward that and resting.

If the mind becomes distracted or caught up in a world that it has created, it's no problem. We just re-evoke a sense of care, a sense of wanting peace, and allow ourselves to settle back into whatever degree of ease or peace is available in the present moment. With gentleness, with kindness.

As the mind settles and rests in this way, there is now an invitation to turn the mind toward the changing nature of experience. There is a flow here. The breath is coming in and out. There may be thoughts appearing in the background and then disappearing. The body hums with its vitality. It's just a small turn of the mind from just resting to actually noticing the changing nature, the arising, the passing, and the shifting of experience. Allow that to really register in the mind even as we continue to sit in this relatively easeful space.

Soon we'll be transitioning out of this meditation. I'd like to invite you to consider how it's possible often to turn the mind toward qualities that are beautiful, that are loving, that are peaceful. Often these mind states are available if we remember to open to them, even in situations that are very mundane, or in situations that may be somewhat challenging. Love is available. Compassion is available. Ethical conduct—being honest or truthful in some way—is available.

Often we just need to remember that this is an aspiration of ours, that we live more often in this realm of goodness, that we are a force for good in the world, protecting things of value and manifesting good qualities to help others. We don't do it perfectly, but it remains an aspiration. The invitation is perhaps to bring that into your day in some way, with the knowledge that the world is a very changeful place. Even our mind changes. These things can come and go. We're not in control, but we continue to have that aspiration toward goodness, toward ease, and toward peace.

Dharmette: Realms (4 of 5): Deva Realm

We continue with the realms of existence that we've been traversing through this week. We started with the hell realms and the hungry ghosts, the most unfortunate realms. Remember that these are meant to be seen—they could be seen as literal places if you want, but they can be seen as mental worlds that we project. We can really get caught up in aversive worlds and in greedy worlds that really distort the mind.

Yesterday we talked about the animal realm, which in the cosmological view is the other realm that we can see as humans. We see the animals, but we don't necessarily see the other realms. We ourselves have animal bodies. We're aware of the drives and the instincts that come from the body for food, for survival, and for sex. As humans, we also have some choices about cultivating the mind. By looking at the animal realm, we can appreciate our ability to choose ethical actions and to choose a spiritual path. When we look at the realms that are less fortunate, we see that we have some extra abilities, such as the ability to be aware of what the mind is doing.

Yesterday I showed a picture of the realms called the Wheel of Life, or the Wheel of Becoming. I noted that it has six realms on it. It divides the god realm into two different realms, but they're both gods. Somebody asked, "What is the sixth realm?" I'll say today that the extra realm is called the Asuras², or the Titans, also called the jealous gods. They're part of the god realm. The Asuras think they should have it even better than they do. They are gods in the upper realms, but they think they should have it even better. They're what happens when pride gets mixed into goodness. The higher devas³, so to speak, of whom the Titans are jealous, have a more peaceful and beauty-oriented disposition. There are a lot of different celestial realms, from ones that are almost earthly up to very highly ethereal realms.

That's what we're going to talk about today: the deva realms, the god realms, the heaven realms. It's a little bit unfortunate that we end up mixing in theistic language about these, but it's almost as if the translators of the texts didn't know what else to say about them. We have words like "heaven" and "gods," but please understand that they're in this different context that we're talking about this week.

The devas—if you want to stay with the Pali or Sanskrit term—live very well. They have bodies that are much less problematic than human or animal bodies. Some of them are fairly dense, but the higher devas have diaphanous bodies, even bodies of light that have no pain, no hunger, and no serious illness. The deva realms are filled with sublime pleasures like celestial music and stunning natural beauty. I think the weather is always good there. Mentally, the devas delight in goodness. They love mettā⁴. They love generosity.

We have this term the Brahma-vihāras⁵. That refers to the four heart qualities that we cultivate, the beautiful qualities of the heart. Vihāra means abode or living place, and Brahma is a word for god or one of the highest gods. These are also the divine abodes, and these are some of the heaven realms where those beautiful heart qualities infuse all of experience.

Devas are good beings. They love Dharma teachings, and they feel happy when they see human beings meditating. That gives them a lot of muditā⁶, or appreciative joy, and they have a genuine appreciation of what can be called merit or goodness—puñña⁷ in Pali. They will actively protect these things. Devas can be appealed to as protectors, and they're said to offer support and help in various unseen ways for beings who are good.

One enters the god realms through good action: through generosity, virtue, love, and compassion. If you live your life in that way, it is said that you're going to be reborn in these higher realms. When we grow these qualities in our heart, even here, we experience the fruit of them as joy, delight, lightness, and wholesome forms of happiness that are not taking happiness away from others. They're just coming from within. They're welling up from our own heart. As humans, even living here, we can do this too. We can cultivate wholesome happiness, and it's a great blessing.

Remembering again that these teachings on the realms are meant to teach us about our own minds, there's a sutta called the Mangala Sutta⁸, the discourse about the highest blessings. A mangala is a blessing, and it goes through all kinds of ways that we can cultivate a good life with whatever conditions that we have. We can always cultivate skillful speech, or take care in how we do our work or our daily activities. We can always cultivate having respectful and loving relationships with those around us or with our family, and develop inner qualities like patience and gratitude. We can listen to the Dharma, we can discuss the Dharma, and we can practice the Dharma. All of these things are talked about in the Mangala Sutta as the highest blessings. We know that when we do things like this, our life goes better. It gets smoother in some way. Even if there are still all of the expected rough spots that happen in any life, somehow when we're attuned to goodness and to the Dharma, we gain the ability to navigate challenges better. Don't believe me necessarily; check it out for yourself, but I've certainly found that to be true.

The Buddha is said to be the teacher of devas and human beings. In the chant of the praise of the Buddha, he has a number of qualities. I referred earlier to lokavidū⁹, the knower of the worlds. Another of the ones that's named is satthā deva-manussānaṃ¹⁰. Satthā is a teacher, and devas and manussānaṃ are humans. So the Buddha is the teacher of devas and human beings. Although he enters all of the realms and he offers his compassion and his presence to all of the realms, really only the humans and the devas have the mental conditions and the mental ability to hear and understand the teaching of the Dharma, to understand the teachings on how to awaken. It's a pretty big blessing.

In the deva realms, there's a lot of goodness. But here's the caveat about the god realm: the devas have a hard time practicing the Dharma. The reason is that the conditions there are so pleasant that they're not actually that motivated to meditate. Everything there is very smooth. And I didn't say this before, but everything is very long-lasting. It's said that one lives in the deva realms for many eons, and there are different lengths of lifetimes depending on how high the realm is. The higher up you get, the longer the number of eons that you can stay. So it is very difficult for devas to see impermanence or change very well.

The issue with the gods is that they tend to miss the opportunity for wisdom because of the conditions of their realm. It's not so easy to see anicca¹¹, impermanence or inconstancy. Not so easy to see dukkha¹², unsatisfactoriness. And they don't bother with anattā¹³. There are whole sections of the Pali Canon where the Buddha is teaching devas. You can read about how he teaches these beings from the celestial realms. Most often what he tries to point them to is the issue that any condition that we can experience is not permanent.

You start to see the advantage that we have as humans. I have a story of a friend who was on the three-month retreat at IMS¹⁴. During this retreat, she got into a long stretch where for days, maybe for weeks, her mind was in deep equanimity and ease. It was a very sublime kind of happiness, and it didn't seem to change. Day after day she would sit in this, and she went to her teacher, Joseph Goldstein¹⁵, in one of the interviews, and she said, "This is great. I really like where my mind is. Why can't I just practice in order to continue staying in this state?" Joseph looked at her, cocked an eyebrow, and said, "It's temporary." [Laughter]

It took her a moment to remember, "Oh, right. There's a lot of conditions that come together to allow the mind to be spacious and equanimous for a long time, but those conditions aren't totally controllable, and they're not sustainable forever. Certainly not in this life." We need something else besides just trying to repeat good experiences.

The god realms, the deva realms, are only temporary respites, if you will, from the ongoing journey on the wheel of becoming. This was a huge innovation of the Buddha, by the way—a big difference from his teaching and the teaching of the brahmins¹⁶, which was that you could permanently merge into some beautiful realm and just stay there forever. The Buddha said, "No, I'm the knower of the realms. I woke up, and I see that even the god realms are impermanent if one doesn't have wisdom, if one doesn't have awakening." The gods are very good, beautiful, and peaceful, but they're not necessarily awake. Heaven and Nibbāna¹⁷ are not the same thing. It's important for us to see that what arises will pass away when the conditions change. When the Buddha teaches about wisdom, he equates it with knowledge of arising and passing away.

In the cosmological story of how beings move around the wheel of life, beings that get into the deva realm because of their goodness—if they don't have wisdom and they don't realize that it's not going to last—will eventually die. You mostly go down from the deva realm. They can fall. They can even fall all the way into hell if they have really no wisdom, or they can fall into the human realm or other things, but it's not permanent. There isn't a permanent residence on the wheel of life.

But don't be too down on these good states. I hope all of this doesn't teach you to say, "Oh, well, never mind then. I don't want to cultivate the Brahma-vihāras or deep concentration states." No, please do cultivate those. We cultivate them because they're part of the path. They're not the goal, but they are part of the path. When we refine our mind with goodness, with ethics, and with concentration, the idea is that we don't just enjoy the state and try to live there forever. We get into that refined mind state because it's very conducive to insight. If we just turn our mind toward seeing impermanence, toward seeing non-self, toward seeing that those states themselves are conditioned, we have the possibility of very deep insight that can free the mind from the cycle of endless becoming.

The heaven realms are nuanced. They're important, they're useful, and they're very nourishing and actually healing for the heart. And they're not the goal. We have to be careful not to believe that they're the goal. The human realm, which we'll talk about tomorrow, is actually the best realm for waking up. The best.

I hope you'll come back tomorrow and we'll talk about humans. Thanks everyone. Have a beautiful day.