Let’s look at the Tibetan Wheel of Life, a diagram or painting that depicts the Buddhist Wheel of Life.
It’s important to note that there is no one Wheel of Life: instead, there are many depictions of the wheel that is described in the original Sanskrit root text. There are many versions, including Chinese, Tibetan and Indian.
Though schools in Tibetan Buddhism tend to follow Mahayana or Vajrayana teachings, the Wheel of Life is essentially a Theravadan teaching. It visually depicts the classic Buddhist view of death and rebirth in a highly symbolic way.
There are two main ways to interpret the diagram: as a depiction of the cycle of multiple lifetimes for an individual consciousness, or as the way samsara, karma and rebirth unfold moment to moment to moment. We’ll discuss both in this article.
The Tibetan Wheel of Life: Core Concepts
Let’s put the wheel into some context.
Its original Sanskrit name is Bhavacakra. Bhava means disposition, state of mind, or the process of becoming, while cakra means circle, wheel, or cycle, a word also used to describe the seven chakras or energy centres in the subtle body.
It describes the workings of karma, whose Sanskrit root iskri-, and which means to act or to do. The fundamental idea of karma is that the cause and effect of our actions are interlinked: one implies the other. Similarly, existence and non-existence also imply one another, as do life and death.
Thus the Bhavacakra shows how we move through various cycles or states according to our actions and state of mind and their effects: “this arises and that becomes.”
Here is a typical, and particularly strikingly and beautiful, example of a Tibetan Wheel of Life. I encourage you to refer back to it as we cover its various aspects.
The Tibetan Wheel of Life: Outer
We begin with the figures and scenes that appear on the rim of the wheel or outside it.
The most eye-catching aspect of the Bhavacakra is the demon- or devil-like figure holding the wheel. This figure represents the origin of the entire wheel, the force that sustains it, which is impermanence and samsara.
Notice that the demon is ready to swallow the entire disc. From one perspective, this portrays the fact that death could come at any time; from another, that death and rebirth are continually occurring from moment to moment.
This figure undoubtedly has a frightening appearance, but it conceals a deeper meaning: that death and change are a liberating factor. A wise person isn’t afraid of the demon, because they realise the inevitability and necessity of death and impermanence.
There are also images of the moon and an archetypal figure. These represent liberation and enlightenment, which are the core aims of all Buddhist teachings. By following the Buddhist path to enlightenment, we free ourselves from the show of samsara.
The Centre of the Wheel
Let’s turn our attention to the wheel itself, beginning with the central section.
Here you can see a pig, a snake and a rooster. These represent the Three Poisons of ignorance, aversion, and desire respectively. Notice that the snake and bird emerge from the pig’s mouth and grasp its tail: desire leads to ignorance and aversion, which in turn lead back to desire and perpetuate the entire cycle.
This motif sits at the centre of wheel to show that everything else depends on the Three Poisons.
The Second Layer
In the layer surrounding the centre of the Wheel of Life, you find two half circles, which represent positive and negative karma.
The left half, coloured white in our example, portrays the ascension we experience when we accumulate positive karma. It symbolises contentment, ascension and higher states of being, all stemming from wholesome intentions and reinforcing them. The more we accumulate, the more uplifted we become.
The dark half, coloured dark turquoise in our example, portrays the descension we experience when we accumulate negative karma. It symbolises suffering, decline and negative states of consciousness, all of which stem from harmful intentions and reinforce them.The more we accumulate, the more degraded we become.
The Third Layer
Now we move to the third layer, which is the largest section of the wheel and is divided into six sections. These represent the six realms of existence, into which we are perpetually reborn. There are in fact 31 realms, but they’re chunked together into six categories in the Bhavacakra. In non-Tibetan versions, you’ll sometimes see five sections.
The three upper sections signify the three higher realms, namely those of the Gods, Demi-gods and humans. On the other hand, the bottom half represents the three lower realms, comprising animals, the hungry ghosts, and hell.
According to Mahayana schools, we’re reborn in a specific realm in each life according to our accumulated negative karma. It’s crucial to note that all realms terminate and are not everlasting. “What goes up most come down”: we go on and on through the sequence of rebirth, living in different realms, until we become enlightened and free ourselves from samsara.
Again, you can interpret this literally, as occurring over a sequence of lifetimes, of which your current human lifetime is just one. You can also see it metaphorically, as describing the course of our life as it unfolds moment to moment. We’re continually cycling among different states of consciousness, or realms, until we step outside this realm and into the realm of nothingness or pure beingness.
The Rim: 12 Links of Dependent Origination
Let’s move to the rim of the wheel, where you see a series of 12 pictures that represent the 12 Links of Dependent Origin, or the 12 steps of karma in action.
The pictures symbolising them vary from wheel to wheel, but the underlying theme is the same. In both diagrams above, the cycle begins at 7 o’clock.
Often this picture is a demon, which represents ignorance. Then, moving clockwise, we have a potter’s wheel (potential, creative impulse), a monkey (consciousness), a man in a boat (combination of name and form), a man’s body (senses), a pair of lovers (contact), a man an with arrow in his eye (pain involved in perception), a woman with twins (desire), a man with a basket (grasping), the gods of prosperity (growth), a woman giving birth (birth), and two old people (old age). This leads us back to ignorance.
Again, this can be thought of literally as once life cycle, or as a description of how the karmic process works moment to moment, how our subjective experience of being a human with a sense of identity, desires, senses, and so forth, is constructed moment by moment, and the effect this has.
The Tibetan Wheel of Life: The Bigger Picture
I must admit, I find The Wheel of Life quite daunting. It’s a fearsome diagram, and it can make you think that life is just one giant wheel of suffering, which sounds horribly negative and disempowering.
At the same time, I very much resonate with the spirit of it. Regardless of whether you agree with the underlying philosophy and all its minutiae, I’m sure you can agree that life is fundamentally a game of perpetuation: we’re continually creating, for better or for worse, and everything we create has inner and outer effects. Only by freeing ourselves from the game do we stop being ensnared by it.
It also shows us how our attachment to the human condition traps us in a game we cannot win, a never-ending cycle of perpetuation that set off by our ignorance of our true transhuman and transpersonal being.
Besides, the Bhavacakra is also a beautiful and striking depiction of these profound ideas, and for that it deserves great praise. We don’t have to wade through the Buddhist canon to discover the secrets of existence: one glimpse at this imposing yet gorgeous work takes us to the heart of the conundrum.
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The post The Tibetan Wheel of Life first appeared on Deep Psychology.
The post The Tibetan Wheel of Life appeared first on Deep Psychology.
