Question 1: Please describe to me the process of reaching Nirvana.
Question 2: I heard that there are Buddhist forms of hell, but they only are temporary and you only go to it for a temporary period of time, unlike the Christian Hell. Please describe to me how this works.
Question 1:
There is no one manner, some are even convinced one can reach Nirvana under their own personal discourse,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_Paths_to_liberation
But I am most fond of the four noble truths:
1) "This is the noble truth of dukkha: birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, illness is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are dukkha; union with what is displeasing is dukkha; separation from what is pleasing is dukkha; not to get what one wants is dukkha; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are dukkha."
2) "This is the noble truth of the origin of dukkha: it is this craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there, that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination."
3) "This is the noble truth of the cessation of dukkha: it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, nonreliance on it."
4) "This is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of dukkha: it is the Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration."
Which leads to the eightfold path:
1) Right View
2) Right Intention
3) Right Speech
4) Right Action
5) Right Livelihood
6) Right Effort
7) Right Mindfulness
8) Right Concentration
It is a path of procedural advancement, starting at the mind, leading to the body, ending at Nirvana.
Question 2:
This is an area of study I have not ventured to beyond dabble. I believe I will find it metaphorical when I do get around to it, though.
I do know they are areas of lower stature beings using their karmic energy in a constructive manner, so can they can be birthed into neutrality again. Like Dante's Circles of Hell, there are varying degrees of Naraka, some where you are simply out in the cold naked and some where you are entombed in a block of heated metal. I do not know why and for what reasons you go to where.