Wheel of Life
Also known as 六道 (lit. Six Realms) or Bhavachakra.
I used to dismiss this diagram as I don’t really believe in past lives or reincarnation. But now looking at it figuratively, I think this metaphor has a lot to teach us about life itself.
Six Realms of Existence
One of the things I’ve learned that is that in this life we go through these six realms of existence. Figuratively, these realms of existence are really our states of mind that we experience in our everyday lives. There are times when:
life is so good we forget about everything (god realm),
life is hell and it seems like there’s no way out (hell realm),
life is all about winning and losing (asura realm),
life is always never enough and wanting more and more and more. (hungry ghost/preta realm)
anything goes in life (animal realm)
life is a mixed bag of happy, sad, good, bad and ugly (human realm)
In this sense, it seems that being in the human realm is probably the best spot we’re in right now as we experience the holistic nature of life itself; the mixed bag. By best spot, I mean what Buddhists claim that the optimal conditions for attaining awakening. Mainly because in this somewhat moderate state (compared to the other realms), we’re more likely to cultivate awareness and presence.
Putting into practice, this means that in life, we go through ups and downs as represented in the modes of existence. And that the key is to be aware that we always have the choice to switch to the bigger, holistic perspective of things (human realm) when needed.
By that, it doesn’t mean that we shut down the other realms and suppress our unpleasant states of mind. We simply can’t because it is part of life itself. For example, when we experience the loss of a loved one, it’s virtually impossible to shut down our grief and get out of hell. At least not immediately.
Rather, it’s the awareness that everything is impermanent and temporary. We don’t remain in hell forever because we’ll always move on to another realm of existence as we progress through life.
Three Animals
In the centre, you see three animals, a rooster, a snake and a pig. They represent our primal tendencies, namely:
attachment, our tendencies to like certain things, love people, etc. (rooster)
aversion, our tendencies to dislike certain things, hate people, fear of heights, etc. (snake),
ignorance, our ignorance and lack of awareness of the bigger picture of life as shown (pig).
In one way, it shows how these primal tendencies can make us suffer in this wheel of life. The animals are the core drivers that make us move through different realms of existence. Despite that they seem to be negatively represented, it doesn’t mean that we should reject and suppress them necessarily in every situation.
Perhaps we could see them as our evolutionary defence mechanisms that can protect us from trauma. The rooster could represent how we stand our ground for believing what is good and true. The snake conveys our aversion to injustice and perhaps our innate feistiness to fight for what is right. Not to mention how we all have our inner pig that allows us to rest, recover, even forget things that overwhelm us.
Thus, it’s a matter of how we exercise wisdom to respond to life’s challenges. And at the same time, having awareness of the bigger picture of things, letting go off our attachments and aversions when needed. Especially when death comes.
Death
You may have realised that while we’re in this loop, there’s a lingering monstrous-like creature that overlooks around the periphery. Sometimes unnoticeable when we’re not looking beyond. That’s Yama, the personification of death itself. It really captures beautifully our fear of death, like a monster lurking and waiting round the corner. And how that forces us to remain in this circle of life.
It really conveys why we’re so attached to ourselves and things around us. Because we fear the uncertainty that death brings. In other words, our continued attachment to what’s living, aversion to death and ignorance of everything in between forces us to keep running in circles.
Having said that, does that mean we should go kill ourselves? Well, it depends. If we’re suffering from a terminal, bed-ridden, debilitating physical condition with no hope of getting better and that prevents us to help others, perhaps so.
But if we’re doing it just to escape this never-ending loop of samsara, that is pretty unwise. Namely because there’s no guarantee that our suffering will end by killing ourselves. After all, like all maps, this metaphor is just an approximation of reality.
Also, we’re not alone in this wheel of life. There are others too like our loved ones and our deaths will only add to their suffering as well. But what if nobody (seems to) love us, does that mean suicide is justified? Perhaps if there is no life on earth (no trees, no animals, no oceans), then probably there’s not much left to live for. But in almost all cases, that’s not really the case. Because the self is never isolated; it is interdependent with things around us through causes and conditions.
Why bother cut our lives short when we know others are suffering also? We could put good use to the time we have left to get people out of suffering, especially when we are pretty healthy (i.e. not suffering from a terminal, bed-ridden, debilitating physical condition with no hope of getting better) and even if we’re mentally unwell sometimes.
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Ultimately, the wheel attempts to show what life is all about. It is what it is. There’ll always be things beyond our control as shown in the seemingly chaotic map. Chaos and order are not mutually exclusive. Rather, it is the chaos that makes up the order. This is what I think Buddhists mean by non-dualism. Not black and white but shades of grey.
The wheel also shows that we don’t suffer forever. There’ll be moments of hell and moments of bliss too. Everything is transient and interdependent with each other. The key here is to cultivate awareness of this bigger picture.
Therefore, it is up to us as to how we would like to respond to the chaos-order. Because that is the part where we have control and influence over; our responses and behaviour towards events, actions of others. And where we have control, we have responsibility for them.