 The hells are terrible places of torture and suffering, in which beings who are dominated by anger and hatred are cut to pieces, burned, frozen, and tormented by demonic apparitions that are in fact projections of their own distorted minds. Hungry ghosts are depicted with large bellies and tiny mouths; driven by greed, they seek endlessly for something to eat or drink, but even when they find a morsel they can swallow, it turns into filth or fire in their mouths. Animals are seen as dominated by stupidity, limited to a fixed set of possible behaviors and primarily trying simply to survive. In this system, the human world is primarily characterized by the instrumental pursuit of objects of desire. The titans are powerful beings who live in relatively pleasant circumstances, but are driven by competitiveness and obsessively envious of the splendor of the gods. They continually plot to invade the heavens. Unfortunately for the titans, when they actually do battle with the gods, they always lose. The gods of the lower heavens, the heavens of desire, live in palaces of astonishing beauty and exquisite sensual pleasure. Blinded by pride, they disregard the suffering of those below them and ignore the fact that their high status is impermanent: they, too, will die. At the top of cyclic existence, in the heavens of form and the formless heavens, other gods rest in a state of peaceful, quiet bliss, with almost no manifest suffering and for vast, but finite, periods of time.