Upon the Full
Moon of the month of Visakha, now more than two thousand five hundred years
ago, the religious wanderer known as Gotama, formerly Prince Siddhartha and
heir to the throne of the Sakiyan peoples, by his full insight into the Truth
called Dharma which is this mind and body, became the One Perfectly Enlightened
by himself.
His
Enlightenment or Awakening, called Sambodhi, abolished in himself unknowing and
craving, destroyed greed, aversion and delusion in his heart, so that
"vision arose, super-knowledge arose, wisdom arose, discovery arose, light
arose - a total penetration into the mind and body, its origin, its cessation
and the way to its cessation which was at the same time complete understanding
of the "world," its origin, its cessation and the way to its
cessation. He penetrated to the Truth underlying all existence. In meditative
concentration throughout one night, but after years of striving, from being a
seeker, He became "the One-who-Knows, the One-who-Sees."
When He came to
explain His great discovery to others, He did so in various ways suited to the
understanding of those who listened and suited to help relieve the problems
with which they were burdened.
He knew with his
Great Wisdom exactly what these were even if his listeners were not aware of
them, and out of His Great Compassion taught Dhamma for those who wished to lay
down their burdens. The burdens which men, indeed all beings, carry round with
them are no different now from the Buddha's time. For then as now men were
burdened with unknowing and craving. They did not know of the Four Noble Truths
nor of Dependent Arising and they craved for fire and poison and were then as
now, consumed by fears. Lord Buddha, One attained to the Secure has said:
"Profound,
Ananda, is this Dependent Arising, and it appears profound. It is through not
understanding, not penetrating this law that the world resembles a tangled
skein of thread, a woven nest of birds, a thicket of bamboo and reeds, that man
does not escape from (birth in) the lower realms of existence, from the states
of woe and perdition, and suffers from the round of rebirth."
The
not-understanding of Dependent Arising is the root of all sorrows experienced
by all beings. It is also the most important of the formulations of Lord Buddha’s
Enlightenment. For a Buddhist it is therefore most necessary to see into the
heart of this for oneself. This is done not be reading about it nor by becoming
expert in scriptures, nor by speculations upon one’s own and others’ concepts
but by seeing Dependent Arising in one’s own life and by coming to grips with
it through calm and insight in one’s "own" mind and body.
"He who
sees Dependent Arising, sees the Dharma."
IGNORANCE (Avijja)Ist
Link: IGNORANCE (avijja)
Represented by an image of a blind
woman who blunders forward, unable to see where she is going. So ignorance is
blindness, not seeing. It is a lack of insight into the reality of things.
This Pali word
"avijja" is a negative term meaning "not knowing completely"
but it does not mean "knowing nothing at all." This kind of unknowing
is very special and not concerned with ordinary ways or subjects of knowledge,
for here what one does not know are the Four Noble Truths, one does not see
them clearly in one’s own heart and one’s own life. In past lives, we did not
care to see 'dukkha' (1), so we could not destroy 'the cause of dukkha' (2) or craving which has impelled us to seek
more and more lives, more and more pleasures. 'The cessation of dukkha' (3)
which perhaps could have been seen by us in past lives, was not realised, so we
come to the present existence inevitably burdened with dukkha. And in the past
we can hardly assume that we set our feet upon the 'practice-path leading to
the cessation of dukkha' (4) and we did not even discover Stream-entry. We are
now paying for our own negligence in the past.
And this
unknowing is not some kind of first cause in the past, for it dwells in our
hearts now. But due to this unknowing, as we shall see, we have set in motion
this wheel bringing round old age and death and all other sorts of dukkha.
Those past "selves" in previous lives who are in the stream of my
individual continuity did not check their craving and so could not cut at the
root of unknowing. On the contrary they made kamma, some of the fruits of which
in this present life I, as their causal resultant, am receiving.
The picture
helps us to understand this: a blind old woman (avijja is of feminine gender)
with a stick picks her way through a petrified forest strewn with bones. It is
said that the original picture here should be an old blind she-camel led by a
driver, the beast being one accustomed to long and weary journeys across
inhospitable country, while its driver could be craving. Whichever simile is
used, the beginninglessness and the darkness of unknowing are well suggested.
We are the blind ones who have staggered from the past into
the present— to what sort of future?
Depending on the existence of unknowing
in the heart there was volitional action, kamma or abhisankhara, made in those past lives.
VOLITIONAL FORMATIONS (Sankhara)2nd
Link: VOLITIONAL FORMATIONS (sankhara)
Represented by a potter. Just as a
potter forms clay into something new, an action begins a sequence that leads to
new consequences. Once put into motion, the potter's wheel continues to spin without much effort. Likewise, an
action creates a predisposition in the mind.
Intentional
actions have the latent power within them to bear fruit in the future - either
in a later part of the life in which they were performed, in the following
life, or in some more distant life, but their potency is not lost with even the
passing of aeons; and whenever the necessary conditions obtain that past kamma
may bear fruit. Now, in past lives we have made kamma, and due to our ignorance
of the Four Noble Truths we have been "world-upholders" and so making
good and evil kamma we have ensured the continued experience of this world.
Beings like
this, obstructed by unknowing in their hearts have been compared to a potter
making pots: he makes successful and beautiful pottery (skillful kamma) and he
is sometimes careless and his pots crack and break up from various flaws
(unskillful kamma). And he gets his clay fairly well smeared over himself just
as purity of heart is obscured by the mud of kamma. The simile of the potter is
particularly apt because the word 'Sankhara' means "forming,"
"shaping," and "compounding," and therefore
it has often been rendered in English as "Formations."
Depending on the existence of these
volitions produced in past lives, there arises the Consciousness called
"relinking" which becomes the basis of this
present life.
CONSCIOUSNESS (Vinnana)3rd Link:
CONSCIOUSNESS (vinnana)
The rebirth consciousness or
"consciousness that links on", is represented by a monkey going from
window to window. This represents a single consciousness perceiving through the
various sense organs. The monkey represents the very primitive spark of sense-consciousness which is
the first moment in the mental life of the new being.
This relinking
consciousness may be of different qualities, according to the kamma upon which
it depends. In the case of all those who read this, the consciousness
"leaping" into a new birth at the time of conception, was a human
relinking consciousness arising as a result of having practiced at least the
Five Precepts, the basis of "humanness" in past lives. One should
note that this relinking consciousness is a resultant, not something which can
be controlled by will. If one has not made kamma suitable for becoming a human
being, one cannot will, when the time of death comes round, "Now I shall
become a man again!" The time for intentional action was when one had the
opportunity to practice Dhamma. Although our relinking- consciousness in this
birth is now behind us, it is now that we can practice Dhamma and make more
sure of a favourable relinking consciousness in future—that is, if we wish to
go on living in Samsara.
This relinking-consciousness
is the third constituent necessary for conception, for even though it is the
mother’s period and sperm is deposited in the womb, if there is no
"being" desiring to take rebirth at that place and time there will be no fertilisation of the ovum.
Dependent upon
relinking-consciousness there is the arising of Mind-body.
MENTALITY-MATERIALITY (Nama-Rupa)4th Link: MIND - BODY (nama-rupa)
Depicted by
people sitting in a boat with one of them steering. The boat symbolises form,
and its occupants, the mental aggregates.
This is not a
very accurate translation but gives the general meaning. There is more included
in rupa that is usually thought of as body, while mind is a compound of
feeling, perception, volition and consciousness. This mind and body is two
interactive continuities in which there is nothing stable. Although in
conventional speech we talk of "my mind" and "my body,"
implying that there is some sort of owner lurking in the background, the wise
understand that laws govern the workings of both mental states and physical
changes and mind cannot be ordered to be free of defilements, nor body told
that it must not grow old, become sick and die.
But it is in the
mind that a change can be wrought instead of drifting through life at the mercy
of the inherent instability of mind and body. So in the illustration, mind is
doing the work of punting the boat of psycho-physical states on the river of
cravings, while body is the passive passenger. The Tibetan
picture shows a coracle being rowed over swirling waters with three (? or four)
other passengers, who doubtless represent the other groups or aggregates (khandha).
With the coming into existence of
mind-body, there is the arising of the Six Sense-spheres.
THE SIX-FOLD SENSE BASE (Salayatana)5th
Link: SIX SENSE - SPHERES (salayatana)
Depicted by a house with six windows and a door. The senses are
the 'portals' whereby we gain our impression of the world. Each of the senses
is the manifestation of our desire to experience things in a particular way.
A house with six
windows is the usual symbol for this link. These six senses are eye, ear, nose,
tongue, touch and mind, and these are the bases for the reception of the
various sorts of information which each can gather in the presence of the
correct conditions. This information falls under six headings corresponding to
the six spheres: sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles and thoughts. Beyond
these six spheres of sense and their corresponding six objective spheres, we
know nothing. All our experience is limited by the senses and their objects
with the mind counted as the sixth. The five outer senses collect data only in
the present but mind, the sixth, where this information is collected and processed,
ranges through the three times adding memories from the past and hopes and
fears for the future, as well as thoughts of various kinds relating to the
present. It may also add information about the spheres of existence which
are beyond the range of the five outer senses, such as the various heavens, the ghosts and
the hell-states. A mind developed through collectedness (samadhi) is able to
perceive these worlds and their inhabitants.
The six sense-spheres existing, there
is Contact.
CONTACT (Phassa)6th Link: CONTACT
(phassa)
A couple embracing depicts the contact
of the sense organs with there objects. With this link, the psychophysical organism begins to
interact with the world. The sensuous impression is symbolised by a kiss. This
indicates that there is a meeting with an object and a distinguishing of it
prior to the production of feeling.
This means the
contact between the six senses and the respective objects. For instance, when
the necessary conditions are all fulfilled, there being an eye, a sight-object,
light and the eye being functional and the person awake and turned toward
the object, there is likely to be eye-contact, the striking of the object upon the sensitive eye-base. The same is
true for each of the senses and their type of contact. The traditional symbol
for this link shows a man and a woman embracing.
In dependence on sensuous impressions,
arises Feeling.
FEELING (Vedana)7th Link: FEELING
(vedana)
Symbolised by an eye pierced by an
arrow. The arrow represents sense data impinging on the sense organs, in this
case the eye. In a very vivid way, the image suggests the strong feelings which
sensory experience evokes - although only painful feeling is here implied, both painful and pleasant
are intended. Even a very small condition causes a great deal of feeling in the
eye. Likewise, no matter what kind of feeling we experience, painful or
pleasurable, we are driven by it and conditioned by it.
When there have
been various sorts of contact through the six senses, feelings arise which are
the emotional response to those contacts. Feelings are of three sorts:
pleasant, painful and neither pleasant nor painful. The first are welcome and
are the basis for happiness, the second are unwelcome and are the basis for
dukkha while the third are the neutral sort of feelings which we experience so
often but hardly notice.
But all feelings
are unstable and liable to change, for no mental state can continue in
equilibrium. Even moments of the highest happiness whatever we consider this
is, pass away and give place to different ones. So even
happiness which is impermanent based
on pleasant feelings is really dukkha, for how can the true
unchanging happiness be found in the unstable? Thus the picture shows a man
with his eyes pierced by arrows, a strong enough illustration of this.
When feelings arise, Cravings are (usually) produced.
CRAVING
(Tanha)8th Link: CRAVING (tanha)
Represented by a
person drinking beer. Even though it harms you, no matter how much you drink,
you just keep on drinking. Also known as attachment, it is a mental factor that
increases desire without any satisfaction.
Up to this
point, the succession of events has been determined by past kamma. Craving,
however, leads to the making of new kamma in the present and it is possible
now, and only now, to practice Dhamma. What is needed here is mindfulness
(sati), for without it no Dhamma at all can be practiced while one will be
swept away by the force of past habits and let craving and unknowing increase
themselves within one’s heart. When one does have mindfulness one may and can
know "this is pleasant feeling," "this is unpleasant
feeling," "this is neither pleasant nor unpleasant feeling"—and
such contemplation of feelings leads one to understand and beware of greed,
aversion and delusion, which are respectively associated with the three
feelings. With this knowledge one can break out of the Wheel of Birth and
Death. But without this Dhamma-practice it is certain that feelings will lead
on to more cravings and whirl one around this wheel full of dukkha. As
Venerable Nagarjuna has said:
"Desires
have only surface sweetness,
hardness within
and bitterness deceptive as the kimpa-fruit.
Thus says the
King of Conquerors.
Such links
renounce they bind the world
Within samsara’s
prison grid.
If your head or
dress caught fire
in haste you
would extinguish it.
Do likewise with
desire.
Which whirls the
wheel of wandering-on
and is the root
of suffering.
No better thing
to do!"
L.K. 23, 104
In Sanskrit, the
word trisna (tanha) means thirst, and by extension implies
"thirst for experience." For this reason, craving is shown as a toper guzzling intoxicants and in the picture has been added
more bottles representing craving for sensual sphere existence and the craving
for the higher heavens
of the Brahma-worlds which are either of subtle form, or formless.
Where the kamma
of further craving is produced there arises Grasping.
CLINGING
(Upadana)9th Link: GRASPING (upadana)
Represented by a
monkey reaching for a fruit. Also known as clinging, it means mentally grabbing
at an object one desires.
This is the
mental state that clings to or grasps the object. Because of this clinging
which is described as craving in a high degree, man becomes a slave to passion.
Upadana is
fourfold: 1. Attachment to sensual pleasures; 2. Attachment to wrong and evil
views; 3. Attachment to mere external observances, rites and rituals; and 4.
Attachment to self, an erroneous lasting soul entity. Man entertains thoughts
of craving, and in proportion as he fails to ignore them, they grow till they
get intensified to the degree of tenacious clinging.
This is an
intensification and diversification of craving which is directed to four ends:
sensual pleasures, views which lead astray from Dhamma, external religious
rites and vows, and attachment to the view of soul or self as being permanent.
When these become strong in people they cannot even
become interested in Dhamma, for their
efforts are directed away from Dhamma and towards
dukkha. The common reaction is to redouble efforts to find peace and happiness
among the objects which are grasped at. Hence both pictures show a man reaching
up to pick more fruit
although his basket is full already.
Where this
grasping is found there Becoming is to be seen.
BECOMING (Bhava)
10th Link: BECOMING (bhava)
Represented by a
woman in late pregnancy. Just as she is about to bring forth a fully developed
child, the karma that will produce the next lifetime is fully potentialized
though not yet manifest.
With hearts
boiling with craving and grasping, people ensure for themselves more and more
of various sorts of life, and pile up the fuel upon the fire of dukkha. The
ordinary person, not knowing about dukkha, wants to stoke up the blaze, but the
Buddhist way of doing things is to let the fires go out for want of fuel by
stopping the process of craving and grasping and thus cutting off Ignorance at
its root. If we want to stay in samsara we must be diligent and see that our
'becoming', which is happening all the time shaped by our kamma,
is 'becoming' in the right direction. This means 'becoming'
in the direction of purity and
following the white path of Dhamma-practice. This will contribute to whatever we become, or do not become, at
the end of this life when the pathways to the various realms stand open and we
'become' according to our practice and to our death-consciousness.
In the presence
of Becoming there is arising in a new birth.
BIRTH (Jati)11th
Link: BIRTH (jati)
This link is
represented by the very explicit image of a woman giving birth to a child.
Birth means the
appearance of the five aggregates (material form, feeling, perception,
formation and consciousness)in the mother’s womb.
Birth, as one
might expect, is shown as a mother in the process of childbirth, a painful
business and a reminder of how dukkha cannot be avoided in any life. Whatever
the future life is to be, if we are not able to bring the wheel to a stop in
this life, certainly that future will arise conditioned by the kamma made in
this life. But it is no use thinking that since there are going to be future
births, one may as well put off Dhamma practice until then—for it is not sure
what those future births will be like. And when they come around, they are just
the present moment as well. So
no use waiting!
Venerable Nagarjuna shows that it is
better to extricate oneself:
"Where birth takes place,
quite naturally are fear,
old age and misery,
disease, desire and death,
As well a mass
of other ills.
When birth’s no
longer brought about.
All the links
are ever stopped."
L.K. 111
Naturally where
there is Birth, is also Old-age and Death.
AGING AND DEATH
(Dukkha)12th Link: AGEING AND DEATH (jara-marana)
The final link
is represented by a dying person. Ageing is both progressive, occurring every
moment of our lifetime, and degenerative which leads to death.
In future one is
assured, given enough of Unknowing and Craving, of lives without end but also
of deaths with end. The one appeals to greed but the other arouses aversion.
One without the other is impossible. But this is the path of
heedlessness. The Dhamma-path leads directly to Deathlessness, the going beyond
birth and death, beyond all dukkha.
We are well exhorted by the words of
Acharya Nagarjuna:
"Do you therefore exert yourself:
At all times try to penetrate Into the heart of these Four
Truths;
For even those
who dwell at home,
they will, by
understanding them ford the river of (mental) floods."
L.K. 115
This is a very
brief outline of the workings of this wheel which we cling to for our own harm
and the hurt of others. We are the makers of this wheel and the turners of this
wheel, but if we wish it and work for it, we are the ones who can stop this
wheel.
Conclusion
This Wheel of
Life teaches us and reminds us of many important features of the Dhamma as it
was intended to by the teachers of old. Contemplating all its features frequently helps to give us true insight into the
nature of Samsara. With its help and our own practice we come to see
Dependent Arising in ourselves. When this has been done thoroughly all the
riches of Dhamma will be available to
us, not from books or discussions, nor from listening to others’
explanations...
The Exalted Buddha has said:
"Whoever sees Dependent
Arising, he sees Dhamma;
Whoever sees Dhamma, he sees
Dependent Arising."
Anicca vata sankhara
uppada vayadammino
Uppajjitva nirujjhant
tesam vupasamo sukho.
Conditions truly they are
transient
With the nature to arise and
cease
Having arisen, then they
pass away
Their calming, cessation is
happiness.
Credits To Original Sources~
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