Wheel of life
Origin
Legend has it that the Buddha himself created the first depiction of the bhavacakra, and the story of how he gave the illustration to King Rudrāyaṇa appears in the anthology of Buddhist narratives called the Divyavadana.
The bhavacakra is painted on the outside walls of nearly every Tibetan Buddhist temple in Tibet and India. Dzongsar Khyentse states:
- One of the reasons why the Wheel of Life was painted outside the monasteries and on the walls (and was really encouraged even by the Buddha himself) is to teach this very profound Buddhist philosophy of life and perception to more simple-minded farmers or cowherds. So these images on the Wheel of Life are just to communicate to the general audience.
Definition
- 1:the Buddhist symbol of the cycle of birth, death, and reincarnation.
Description
The bhavacakra (Wheel of Life) (Sanskrit; Pali: bhavacakka; Tibetan: srid pa'i 'khor lo) is a symbolic representation of samsara (or cyclic existence) found on the outside walls of Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries in the Indo-Tibetan region. In the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, it is believed that the drawing was designed by the Buddha himself in order to help ordinary people understand the Buddhist teachings.
The bhavacakra is popularly referred to as the wheel of life. This term is also translated as wheel of cyclic existence or wheel of becoming.
The meanings of the main parts of the diagram are:
- 1. The images in the hub of the wheel represent the three poisons of ignorance, attachment and aversion.
- 2. The second layer represents karma.
- 3. The third layer represents the six realms of samsara.
- 4. The fourth layer represents the twelve links of dependent origination.
- 5. The fierce figure holding the wheel represents impermanence.
- 6. The moon above the wheel represents liberation from samsara or cyclic existence.
- 7. The Buddha pointing to the moon indicates that liberation is possible.
Symbolically, the three inner circles, moving from the center outward, show that the three poisons of ignorance, attachment, and aversion give rise to positive and negative actions; these actions and their results are called karma. Karma in turn gives rise to the six realms, which represent the different types of suffering within samsara.
The fourth and outer layer of the wheel symbolizes the twelve links of dependent origination; these links indicate how the sources of suffering—the three poisons and karma—produce lives within cyclic existence.
The fierce being holding the wheel represents impermanence; this symbolizes that the entire process of samsara or cyclic existence is impermanent, transient, constantly changing. The moon above the wheel indicates liberation. The Buddha is pointing to the moon, indicating that liberation from samsara is possible.[1]
