WHEEL OF LIFE

Wheel of Life (Sidpa khorlo) is a symbolic representation of Karmic World (or cyclic existence). It is found on the walls of every temples and monasteries in the Bhutan to help ordinary people understand Buddhist teachings.

It means continuity of becoming (reincarnating) in one of the realms of existence, in the samsaric context of rebirth, life and the maturation arising there from where the wheel, as well as circle used in a variety of senses, symbolising endless rotation.

The Wheel of Life is painted on the outside walls of every temples and monasteries to instruct non-monastic audience about the Buddhist teachings.


The Wheel of Life consist of the following elements:

1. The pig, rooster and snake in the hub of the wheel represent the THREE POISONS
2. The second layer represents KARMA
3. The third layer represents the SIX REALMS OF SAMSARA
4. The fourth layer represents the TWELVE LINKS OF DEPENDENT ORIGINATION
5. The fierce figure holding the wheel represents IMPERNANCE
6. The moon above the wheel represents LIBERATION FROM SAMSARA or CYCLIC EXISTENCE
7. The Buddha pointing to the white circle indicates that LIBERATION IS POSSIBLE

Symbolically, the three inner circles, moving from the center outward, show that the three poisons of ignorance, attachment, and aversion give rise to positive and negative actions; these actions and their results are called karma. Karma in turn gives rise to the six realms, which represent the different types of suffering within Samsara.

The fourth and outer layer of the wheel symbolizes the twelve links of dependent origination; these links indicate how the sources of suffering - the three poisons and karma - produce lives within cyclic existence.

The fierce being holding the wheel represents impermanence; this symbolizes that the entire process of Samsara or cyclic existence is impermanent, transient, constantly changing. The moon above the wheel indicates liberation. The Buddha is pointing to the moon, indicating that liberation from Samsara is possible.

 

THREE POISONS

In the hub of the wheel are three animals: a pig, a snake, and a bird. They represent the three poisons of ignorance, aversion, and attachment, respectively.

The pig stands for ignorance; this comparison is based on the Indian concept of a pig being the most foolish of animals, since it sleeps in the dirtiest places and eats whatever comes to its mouth.

The snake represents aversion or anger; this is because it will be aroused and strike at the slightest touch.

The bird represents attachment or desire or clinging. The particular bird used in this diagram represents an Indian bird that is very attached to its partner.

These three animals represent the three poisons, which are the core of the Bhavacakra. From these three poisons, the whole cycle of existence evolves.

In many drawings of the wheel, the snake and bird are shown as coming out of the mouth of the pig, indicating that aversion and attachment arise from ignorance. The snake and bird are also shown grasping the tail of the pig, indicating that they in turn promote greater ignorance.

Under the influence of the three poisons, beings create karma, as shown in the next layer of the circle.

 

KARMA

The second layer of the wheel shows two - half circles:

• One half-circle (usually light) shows contented people moving upwards to higher states, possibly to the higher realms.
• The other half-circle (usually dark) shows people in a miserable state being led downwards to lower states, possibly to the lower realms.

These images represent KARMA, the law of cause and effect. The light half-circle indicates people experiencing the results of positive actions. The dark half-circle indicates people experiencing the results of negative actions.

Propelled by their karma, beings take rebirth in the six realms of Samsara, as shown in the next layer of the circle.

SIX REALMS OF SAMSARA

The third layer of the wheel is divided into six sections that represent the six realms of Samsara, or cyclic existence, the process of cycling through one rebirth after another. These six realms are divided into three higher realms and three lower realms. The wheel can also be represented as having five realms, combining the God realm and the Demi-god realm into a single realm.

1. God Realm (Deva): the gods lead long and enjoyable lives full of pleasure and abundance, but they spend their lives pursuing meaningless distractions and never think to practice the Dharma. When death comes to them, they are completely unprepared; without realizing it, they have completely exhausted their good karma (which was the cause for being reborn in the god realm) and they suffer through being reborn in the lower realms.
2. Demi-God Realm (Asura): the demi-gods have pleasure and abundance almost as much as the gods, but they spend their time fighting among themselves or making war on the gods. When they make war on the gods, they always lose, since the gods are much more powerful. The demi-gods suffer from constant fighting and jealousy, and from being killed and wounded in their wars with each other and with the gods.
3. Human Realm (Manuṣya): humans suffer from hunger, thirst, heat, cold, separation from friends, being attacked by enemies, not getting what they want, and getting what they don't want. They also suffer from the general sufferings of birth, old age, sickness and death. Yet the human realm is considered to be the most suitable realm for practicing the dharma, because humans are not completely distracted by pleasure (like the gods or demi-gods) or by pain and suffering (like the beings in the lower realms).
4. Animal Realm (Tiryagyoni): wild animals suffer from being attacked and eaten by other animals; they generally lead lives of constant fear. Domestic animals suffer from being exploited by humans; for example, they are slaughtered for food, overworked, and so on.
5. Hungry Ghost Realm (Preta): hungry ghosts suffer from extreme hunger and thirst. They wander constantly in search of food and drink, only to be miserably frustrated any time they come close to actually getting what they want. For example, they see a stream of pure, clear water in the distance, but by the time they get there the stream has dried up. Hungry ghosts have huge bellies and long, thin necks. On the rare occasions that they do manage to find something to eat or drink, the food or water burns their neck as it goes down to their belly, causing them intense agony.
6. Hell Realm (Naraka): hell beings endure unimaginable suffering for eons of time. There are actually eighteen different types of hells, each inflicting a different kind of torment. In the hot hells, beings suffer from unbearable heat and continual torments of various kinds. In the cold hells, beings suffer from unbearable cold and other torments.

Among the six realms, the human realm is considered to offer the best opportunity to practice the dharma. In some representations of the wheel, there is a Buddha or Bodhisattva depicted within each realm, trying to help sentient beings find their way to NIRVANA.

 

TWELVE LINKS OF DEPENDENT ORIGINATION

The outer rim of the wheel is divided into twelve sections that represent the Twelve Links. As previously stated, the three inner layers of the wheel show that the three poisons lead to karma, which leads to the suffering of the six realms. The twelve links of the outer rim show how this happens - by presenting the process of cause and effect in detail.

These twelve links can be understood to operate on an outer or inner level.

• On the outer level, the twelve links can be seen to operate over several lifetimes; in this case, these links show how our past lives influence our current lifetime, and how our actions in this lifetime influence our future lifetimes.
• On the inner level, the twelve links can be understood to operate in every moment of existence in an interdependent manner. On this level, the twelve links can be applied to show the effects of one particular action.

By contemplating on the twelve links, one gains greater insight into the workings of karma; this insight enables us to begin to unravel our habitual way of thinking and reacting.

The twelve causal links, paired with their corresponding symbols, are:

1. Avidya lack of knowledge - a blind person, often walking, or a person peering out
2. Saṃskarra constructive volitional activity - a potter shaping a vessel or vessels
3. Vijnana consciousness - a man or a monkey grasping a fruit
4. Namarupa name and form (constituent elements of mental and physical existence) - two men afloat in a boat
5. Ṣaḍayatana six senses (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind) - a dwelling with six windows
6. Sparsa contact - lovers consorting, kissing, or entwined
7. Vedana pain - an arrow to the eye
8. Tṛṣṇa thirst - a drinker receiving drink
9. Upadana grasping - a man or a monkey picking fruit
10. Bhava coming to be - a couple engaged in intercourse, a standing, leaping, or reflective person
11. Jati being born - woman giving birth
12. Jaramaraṇa old age and death - corpse being carried

IMPERNANCE

The wheel is being held by a fearsome figure that represents impermanence.

This figure is often interpreted as being Mara, the demon who tried to tempt the Buddha, or as Yama, the lord of death. Regardless of the figure depicted, the inner meaning remains the same - that the entire process of cyclic existence (Samsara) is transient; everything within this wheel is constantly changing.

Yama has the following attributes:

• He wears a crown of five skulls that symbolize the impermanence of the five aggregates. (The skulls are also said to symbolize the five poisons.)
• He has a third eye that symbolizes the wisdom of understanding impermanence.
• He is sometimes shown adorned with a tiger skin, which symbolizes fearfulness. (The tiger skin is typically seen hanging beneath the wheel.)
• His four limbs (that are clutching the wheel) symbolize the sufferings of birth, old age, sickness, and death.

LIBERATION FROM SAMSARA

Above the wheel is an image of the moon; the moon represents liberation from the sufferings of Samsara. Some drawings may show an image of a "pure land" to indicate liberation, rather than a moon.

 

LIBERATION IS POSSIBLE (PATH TO LIBERATION)

The upper part of the drawing also shows an image of the Buddha pointing toward the moon; this represents the path to liberation. While in Theravada Buddhism this is the Noble Eightfold Path, in Mahayana Buddhism this is the Bodhisattva path, striving to liberation for all sentient beings.

“May all the sentient beings be liberated from the suffering”

BBC Doc Proves Jesus Was A Buddhist Monk Named Issa Who Spent 16+ Years In India & Tibet

The life story of the most famous person who has ever lived is, in fact, filled with a mysterious gaping hole. From the age of 13 to 29 there is no Biblical, Western, or Middle Eastern record of Jesus‘s whereabouts or activities in Palestine. Known as “The Lost Years,” this gaping hole remained a mystery until one explorer’s remarkable discovery in 1887.

In the late 19th century a Russian doctor named Nicolas Notovitch traveled extensively throughout India, Tibet, and Afghanistan. He chronicled his experiences and discoveries in his 1894 book The Unknown Life of Christ. At one point during his voyage, Notovitch broke his leg in 1887 and recuperated at the Tibetan Buddhist Monastery of Hemis in the city of Leh, at the very top of India. It was here where monks showed Notovitch two large yellowed volumes of a document written in Tibetan, entitled The Life of Saint Issa. During his time at the monastery, Notovitch translated the document which tells the true story of a child named Jesus (i.e. Issa = “son of God”) born in the first century to a poor family in Israel. Jesus was referred to as “the son of God” by the Vedic scholars who tutored him in the sacred Buddhist texts from the age of 13 to 29. Notovitch translated 200 of the 224 verses from the document.

During his time at the monastery in 1887, one lama explained to Notovitch the full scope and extreme level of enlightenment that Jesus had reached. “Issa [Jesus] is a great prophet, one of the first after the twenty-two Buddhas,” the lama tells Notovitch. “He is greater than any one of all the Dalai Lamas, for he constitutes part of the spirituality of our Lord. It is he who has enlightened you, who has brought back within the pale of religion the souls of the frivolous, and who has allowed each human being to distinguish between good and evil. His name and his acts are recorded in our sacred writings. And in reading of his wondrous existence, passed in the midst of an erring and wayward people, we weep at the horrible sin of the pagans who, after having tortured him, put him to death.”

The discovery of Jesus’s time in India lines up perfectly with The Lost Years of Jesus, as well as with the degree of significance of his birth in the Middle East. When a great Buddhist, or Holy Man (i.e. Lama), dies, wise men consult the stars and other omens and set off — often on extraordinarily long journeys — to find the infant who is the reincarnation of the Lama. When the child is old enough he is taken away from his parents and educated in the Buddhist faith. Experts speculate that this is the foundational origin of the story of the Three Wise Men, and it is now believed Jesus was taken to India at 13 and taught as a Buddhist. At the time, Buddhism was already a 500-year-old religion and Christianity, of course, had not even begun.

“Jesus is said to have visited our land and Kashmir to study Buddhism. He was inspired by the laws and wisdom of Buddha,” a senior lama of the Hemis monastery told the IANS news agency. The head of the Drukpa Buddhist sect, Gwalyang Drukpa, who heads the Hemis monastery, also confirms the story. The 224 verses have since been documented by others, including Russian philosopher and scientist, Nicholas Roerich, who in 1952 recorded accounts of Jesus’s time at the monastery. “Jesus passed his time in several ancient cities of India such as Benares or Varanasi. Everyone loved him because Issa dwelt in peace with the Vaishyas and Shudras whom he instructed and helped,” writes Roerich.

Jesus spent some time teaching in the ancient holy cities of Jagannath (Puri), Benares (in Uttar Pradesh), and Rajagriha (in Bihar), which provoked the Brahmins to excommunicate him which forced him to flee to the Himalayas where he spent another six years studying Buddhism.

German scholar, Holger Kersten, also writes of the early years of Jesus in India in the book Jesus Lived In India. “The lad arrives in a region of the Sindh (along the river Indus) in the company of merchants,” writes Kersten. “He settled among the Aryans with the intention of perfecting himself and learning from the laws of the great Buddha. He travelled extensively through the land of the five rivers (Punjab), stayed briefly with the Jains before proceeding to Jagannath.”

And in the BBC documentary, Jesus Was A Buddhist Monk, experts theorize that Jesus escaped his crucifixion, and in his mid-late 30s he returned to the land he loved so much. He not only escaped death, but he also visited with the Jewish settlers in Afghanistan who had escaped similar tyranny of the Jewish emperor Nebuchadnezzar. Locals confirm that Jesus spent the next several years in the Kashmir Valley where he lived happily until his death at 80-years-old. With sixteen years of his youth spent in the region, as well as approximately his last 45, that means Jesus spent a total of roughy 61 to 65 years of his life in India, Tibet, and the neighboring area. Locals believe he is buried at the Roza Bal shrine at Srinagar in India-controlled Kashmir. The BBC visited the shrine and you can read about what they found HERE.

BY BRENT LAMBERT • BOOKS, HISTORY, INSPIRATION, SPIRITUALITY 

HOW DO I GET TO BHUTAN?

The best way to enter and exit Bhutan is by Druk Air and Bhutan Airline, which links Bhutan’s only airport at Paro valley with flights to:

• Bangkok
• Delhi 
• Bodhgaya
• Guwahati
• Singapore
• Katmandu 
• Dhaka
• Calcutta
• Mumbai
• Bagdogra

You will have to buy international Air ticket and book hotel in any of the above gateway cities that you choose to connect to Druk Air and Bhutan Airline.

You can also enter and exit Bhutan overland from Indian cities of Sikkim, Kalimpong, Darjeeling, Siliguri or Guwahati using Bagdogra or Guwahati domestic airport in West Bengal (India). There are daily flights from Calcutta and New Delhi to Bagdogra and Guwahati airports. The car journey takes about 3 hours from Guwahati to Samdrup Jongkhar and about 4 hours from Bagdogra to Phuentsholing.

Trips:

1. Flight operation is totally dependent on weather conditions; sometimes flights can be delayed so avoid tight connecting schedules for your ongoing flights. We suggest you to spend a day or two in Bangkok, Kathmandu or Delhi, before joining the trip in Bhutan if time permits.
2. Connect from Bangkok (Thailand) if you are coming from North America, Australia or Asia,
3. Connect from Delhi (India) if you are coming from Europe or the Middle East.
4. Connect to from Kathmandu (Nepal), Calcutta (India) and Dhaka (Bangladesh), but there are only a limited number of direct flights to these places.
5. Spend a few days exploring a different culture in any of Bhutan neighbouring countries: Thailand, Tibet, India and Nepal to enhance your trip to Bhutan.
6.