Tibetan Buddhist Wheel of Life
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Tibetan Buddhist Wheel of Life; The walls or entrances of Buddhist monasteries and pagodas are often decorated with "Wheels of Life," paintings representing principals of Buddhism.
They are complex, image-filled paintings that aim to show viewers how desire imprisons us in a world of suffering and rebirth and that the mind is only a delusion.
The three cardinal sins;
passion and delusion (represented by a cock),
hatred (a snake), and
greed and stupidity (a pig)---are often situated at the center of the wheel.
The wheel is turned by Yama, the Lord of Death, who represents the limitations of existence.
At the bottom of the wheel are hot and cold hells and a scale used to measure good and bad karma one has accumulated in one's lifetime.
In the ring outside the center are the 8 or 12 karma formations, which contain the victims of bad karma (black background) on the left and the beneficiaries of good karma (white background) on the right.
In the next ring are the six spheres of existence; then the twelve links in the chain of causation, culminating in the search for truth; and finally in the outer most ring are symbols depicting impermanence or death.
The six spheres of existence are;
1) the realm of the gods, a transitory place where happiness rises above suffering;
2) the realm of the asuras (jealous gods), where creatures of all sorts fight over fruit on the wishing tree and have to be reminded by Buddha to stay on the path;
3) the realm of the pretas (the hungry ghosts), the home of grotesque figures who have given into greed and can't eat because their throats are too narrow;
4) the hells, where creatures with cold hearts and anger live in misery;
5) the realm of the animals, a place of ignorance, lethargy and apathy; and
6) the realm of the humans, characterized by birth, old age, disease, sickness and death.
The twelve links in the chain of causation features:
1) a blind woman (symbolizing ignorance);
2) a potter (unconscious of will);
3) a monkey (consciousness);
4) men in a boat (self-consciousness);
5) house (the five senses);
6) lovers (attachment);
7) a man with an arrow in his eye (feeling);
9) people drinking (desire);
10) a figure grasping fruit from a tree (greed);
11) pregnancy (birth); and
12) a man with a corpse (death).
The wheel of law or the wheel of Dharma represents;
Dharma,
the cosmos and
the concept of karma.
The central wheel is symbolic of Buddha's teachings which set the wheel of dharma in motion.