When this psychological potential meets with certain supportive circumstances - the equivalent of the seed being awakened by the spring sun and rain - results start to emerge. Like buried seeds in winter, the imprints of actions rest dormantly in the 'storehouse consciousness', as potential prime causes of future experience. A seed does not cease to exist when it falls into the ground: it just disappears from sight, to develop later into a shoot which eventually becomes a fully-matured plant. Thus it is called 'karma, cause and effect'. The word karma is the Sanskrit term for action, encompassing not only the initial action itself, but also all its consequences. Others, more like small flowers and mushrooms, are much more temporary phenomena. Some, like mighty trees, have been developing over many generations. Like a complex garden, a human (or other) existence is the ripening, side by side, of many different things planted in the past. The ground onto which they fall is our ongoing continuum of consciousness. Just as good cherry seeds, as they fall to the ground, have the power to produce delicious fruit, some time in the future, and aconite seeds have the power to produce deadly poison, so do our acts already contain a quasi-genetic programming of future happiness or suffering. Future benefits or handicaps are shaped entirely by the nature of action itself, through its ongoing influence upon the mind. Unlike many other religions, Buddhism does not think of external beings who reward or punish one for altruistic or selfish acts.
#Tibetan wheel of life free#
As the force of karma depends upon the motivation behind it, the karma of humans is, on the contrary, strong, since they possess intelligence and free will. Animals and other non-humans do create some karma, but it is quite weak. It is while human that most karma is created, with other states being mainly the experience of the results of human actions. Going up or down from one life to the next and returning again and again to the same patterns of action, through habit, and thereby reaping again and again the same results, this endless round of existence is represented by the 'wheel of life'.Īmong the almost endless possibilities of existence in the cosmos, a human birth is considered to be very special. There is no natural evolution in this process, hence a higher state of existence can be followed by an even better one or a worse one, depending entirely upon how it is utilised. In this existence, one is reaping the harvest of seeds sown by actions (karma) of past lives, while at the same time planting new seeds to ripen in the life to come.
#Tibetan wheel of life series#
The Buddhist explanation is to see this life as but one in a series of many. Why are some people rich yet some poor, some happy yet others in misery, some lucky and some unlucky? Moreover, why are some pure, innocent beings afflicted with terrible misfortunes whereas evil tyrants remain healthy and rich? These are difficult questions for most faiths, believing in a just and compassionate God, to answer. THE ROLE OF ROKPA TRUST – Guidelines and Policies The Samye Ling Victory Stupa for World Peace The widest circle depicts the six realms of possible rebirths within samsara: hell beings (at the bottom), hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, demigods, and gods (at the top).Īlong the outer edge, the twelve links of dependent origination symbolize how consciousness becomes trapped in samsara under the power of ignorance, which leads to actions with karmic repercussions, the sensual desires of the body and mind, mental grasping at pleasures and existence, and ultimately birth, old age, and death.His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorjeĭharma Study and Practice in Kagyu Samye Lingīuddhist Funeral Advice in the Tibetan Tradition
The white half shows that if we practice right motivation and right action, we can move upward through the Wheel of Life and ultimately liberate ourselves. The black half shows that negative actions, powered by the three poisons, lead us downward into the lower births. The next circle, with white and black halves, reminds us how these qualities, and their opposites, rule our future.
The center of the wheel portrays the three mental poisons, or kleshas, that keep beings trapped in samsara: attachment (a rooster), hatred (a green snake), and ignorance (a black pig). Painted on a striking lapis background, the red, wrathful figure of Yama, the Lord of Death, or possibly Yami, female demon of death, holds the circle of samsara containing all six realms of existence, and is about to swallow it – reflecting the precarious impermanence of all that exists in these realms. The Wheel of Life is a Tibetan Buddhist visualization of the human condition within the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth- samsara and a vivid reminder of the law of karma.
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