The Wheel Of Existence

by Geshe Sonam Rinchen

The Buddha’s supreme disciples Shariputra and Maudgalyayana are said to have visited various otherworldly realms, including the hell realms. On their return they described six states of existence to the Buddha’s followers and spoke about the four noble truths, explaining the process of taking rebirth in a way that made a profound impact on their listeners. The Buddha knew that they would not always be present to do this, so he arranged for images depicting this process — the twelve links of dependent arising — to be painted in the porches of temples. In each temple a monk was given the task of explaining these paintings and their import to those who were interested. Even today many Tibetan temples contain an image of the wheel of existence painted on the walls at the entrance.

In this depiction, the twelve links are shown as part of the wheel or circle of existence, which is held by the Lord of Death, who appears as an ogre. He grips the wheel with the long claws of his front and hind paws, holding it against his belly and chest. The top of the wheel is in his mouth. At the hub are three creatures: a pig, a bird, and a snake, denoting ignorance, desire, and anger, respectively. They are at the centre of the wheel because these three main disturbing emotions are the primary causes that keep us in cyclic existence.

The snake and the bird seem to be coming out of the pig’s mouth because ignorance is the principal of these three disturbing states of mind.

The wheel is divided into sections of which the three lower ones show the realms of hell beings, hungry spirits, and animals. These segments signify the suffering of pain. There are three upper sections representing the human realm, the abodes of the gods belonging to the desire realm, and those of the gods belonging to the form realm. The first two represent the suffering of change, while the latter represents the pervasive suffering of conditioning.

The different kinds of suffering have been caused by contaminated actions underlain by the disturbing emotions. To show how this happens, the twelve links of dependent arising — ignorance, formative action, consciousness, name and form, the six sources, contact, feeling, craving, grasping, existence, birth, and ageing and death — are painted around the rim of the wheel.

The scenes within each section show what living beings experience in that particular kind of rebirth. The fact that the Lord of Death holds the wheel of existence in his mouth signifies impermanence and that everything is subject to transience. Up above is the moon, symbolising the third noble truth, true cessation of suffering. Below that is the Buddha pointing to this moon to remind us that he has shown us the path to liberation and has taught the four truths in an unerring way. His presence is a sign that we cannot reach freedom without understanding what needs to be practised and what must be avoided. For this we depend on him and our spiritual teachers, who communicate to us what he taught. At the bottom of the painting there are usually some lines explaining the process that keeps us in cyclic existence and how that process can be reversed. These lines indicate the key insights that we need to gain while we practice the fourth noble truth, the true paths.

In paintings of the wheel of existence certain images are traditionally used to symbolise each of the twelve links, though these may vary.

(1) The initial ignorance that starts the whole process off each time is shown as a blind old woman. She is not only unable to see what lies before her but wanders around lost. This illustrates how our inability to understand reality causes us to wander powerlessly through the three states of existence — the desire, form, and formless realms.

(2) Formative action is a potter making pots and also sometimes the potter’s wheel. The potter turns the wheel and produces different kinds of pots. Formative action is of different kinds — virtuous, non-virtuous, and unfluctuating. These actions result in the different kinds of rebirth.

(3) Consciousness is a monkey in a house with six windows through which the monkey looks out. These windows symbolise our six faculties, through which we experience pleasure and pain.

(4) Name and form are a boat which conveys the idea of travelling from one life to another. This link is also sometimes represented by a tripod covered with cloth, like a shelter we might make on a hot day. The tripod cannot balance on two legs but needs all three to stand. The three are interdependent. Similarly the five aggregates that make up name and form are interdependent and cannot exist on their own. Moreover, the existence of the person depends on them. When we think about this, it helps us to understand lack of independence and to gain a correct understanding of reality — that things are empty of inherent existence and are all dependently existent.

(5) The six sources are an empty house or empty town. Sometimes from the outside a house appears to be inhabited, but when we enter it, we realise it is empty. The empty house indicates that in the womb the different faculties gradually develop, but consciousness is not yet functioning in conjunction with them. The mental faculty is present from the outset, but the other five faculties develop as the fetus grows. They are unable to experience their objects until the link of contact occurs. The empty house also stands for selflessness. The six faculties come into being through the force of past actions, but they are not the objects of use or possessions of an intrinsically existent self.

(6) Contact is a couple engaged in sexual union. To have intercourse their bodies must touch. For contact to occur, an object of perception, a faculty, and a consciousness must come together.

(7) Feeling is a person whose eye is pierced by an arrow. Just as we would feel intense pain the moment that happened, so when the quality of an object is discerned, pleasurable, painful, or neutral sensations or feelings immediately follow.

(8) Craving is a person drinking beer. Alcoholics never feel satisfied no matter how much they drink. On the contrary, their craving for alcohol simply increases. They will drink away their wealth, property, and possessions. Similarly desire keeps growing. We crave different kinds of feelings and wish not to be separated from pleasurable ones, to be free from unpleasant and painful ones as quickly as possible, and for neutral feelings not to decline. Craving keeps growing and makes us perform all kinds of negative actions that bring us suffering.

(9) Grasping is a monkey sitting in a tree full of ripe fruit. While it eats one fruit, it is already reaching out to take another. It is consumed by greed and cannot be satisfied. Grasping is reaching out for the aggregates of the next life.

(10) Existence is a woman who is nine months pregnant and whose baby is fully grown in the womb, about to be born. Existence occurs when the imprint of a former action has been fully activated through craving and grasping and everything is ready to produce the next rebirth.

(11) Birth is a woman holding her newly born child, while (12) ageing and death are shown as someone who is no longer young carrying a corpse.

The usual way in which the twelve links are enumerated, which emphasise the relationships between the links, differs from the order in which they actually occur. The first three links begin the process. Then the eighth, ninth, and tenth occur, followed by the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh. The eleventh occurs simultaneously with the fourth and marks the point of conception. Regarding the twelfth link, ageing begins the moment after conception and thus inevitably precedes death.

Most of us have not done much philosophical speculation about our own origins or those of the world but we do hold some hazy ideas about what is responsible for our experiences of suffering or happiness. Usually we attribute them to external factors and circumstances or we may go a little beyond our everyday material world and attribute them to spirit influences, the phases of the moon, the astrological position of constellations, and so forth. Many people regard misfortune as some kind of punishment. The Buddha encouraged us to look within and think more deeply about what is responsible for our present condition. He pointed out that as long as we continue to be born as a result of our ignorance and the compulsive actions which stem from it, we cannot escape the many kinds of physical and mental suffering that are their inevitable consequence.