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For the newsletter this month, I'd like to explain the structure of the Wheel of Life diagram and the basic ideas presented through it's drawings. For those who may be interested, I put together a more lengthy explanation and posted it on the website. Here's a link to it:
Wheel of Life Explanation
The Wheel of Life depicts the self-perpetuating process of delusion and suffering that characterizes our worldly existence, samsara. The Tibetan name is "Sipa Khorlo;" sipa meaning existence or life and khorlo, the word for wheel. The Wheel of Life is comprised of four concentric rings.
The outside ring shows the “12 nidanas,” links in the causal chain of neurotic mind. This chain is the psychological mechanism of the process of karma, one step leading to the next, producing the illusion of a self and other. The 12 steps in this cycle of interdependent origination are: Ignorance, Karmic formations, Consciousness, Name and form, Six sense organs, Contact, Sensation, Craving, Grasping, Becoming, Birth, and Death. Happening every instant, too quick to see, but the process maintains the full blown illusion where light and energy are reified into “reality.”
The next circle in, the large circle shows the “six realms,” which are the expressions of the 12 nidanas. The illusion expresses itself in six styles, producing six specific worlds, each with its particular occupations and body types.
The 6 Realms are: the god realm, the jealous god realm, the human realm, the animal realm, the hungry ghost realm and the hell realm .
The human realm and animal realm are the only two that are visible to most of us humans. The human realm is said to be unique in that humans can experience and understand the psychological states of the other realms, whereas the beings in the other realms are too self absorbed in their bliss (gods), suffering (hell beings), ignorance (animals), jealousy (jealous gods) and desires (pretas) to experience any psychological states other than their own. For this reason, the human realm is considered the best one for spiritual practice and the attainment of enlightenment. Although in each realm a buddha is shown attempting to convey the spiritual teachings (Dharma), the human realm is the only one in which the Buddha Dharma can be clearly heard.
The next circle in depicts beings rising and falling in a karmic cycle that depends on their accumulation of merit or misdeeds. The innermost circle, the hub, contains the "3 Poisons" that fuel the samsaric display: ignorance, aversion, and desire (symbolized by the pig, the snake and the rooster.)
The entire Wheel of samsaric existence is in the grasp of Yama, lord of death, symbolizing the transitory nature of existence, and the inescapabilty of cause and effect.
In the upper right corner stands the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara pointing the way to liberation from samsara. In the upper left corner sits the Buddha Shakyamuni teaching the Dharma.
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