The Three Principles of the Path
And to give birth to the great wish for blissful freedom.
The Foundation of All Perfections
Joni Mitchell, "The Circle Game" (1970)
the eye is not satisfied with seeing, or the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done;
there is nothing new under the sun.
-- Ecclesiastes 1:8-9
Painted on the outside wall of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and temples is a "Wheel of Existence" (bhavachakra), a symbolic representation of Saṃsāra, the endless cycle of birth, death and suffering. This comprises six "realms" or mental/emotional states, divided into three "lower" and three "upper" realms:
- The realm of samsaric gods (devas), who enjoy great pleasure but suffer from impermanence and death
- The realm of humans, who suffer from birth, disease, old age and death, but who have the opportunity to get off the wheel thanks to the Ten Endowments
- The realm of hungry ghosts (pretas), who suffer unquenchable hunger and thirst
- The hell realm (naraka) of extreme suffering of heat, cold, mental and physical distress
- The realm of animals, who suffer from being killed and even eaten alive, and from ignorance which keeps them in thrall to samsara
- The realm of demi-gods (asuras), who suffer from their own jealousy, which leads them to constantly make war on the devas - and constantly lose!
In the center of the wheel are the Three Poisons, represented by three animals who provide the energy to keep the wheel turning: the pig (ignorance), the snake (aversion) and the rooster (attachment). On the inner rim of the hamster cage are the sentient beings, propelled downward by negative karma (their actions while under the influence of the poisons) and upward by positive karma (actions taken as they free themselves from the poisons). Around the outer rim are the "twelve stages of dependent origination," showing how beings are trapped in the cycle through ignorance. The whole wheel is held in the grip of impermanence, usually represented as Yama, the Lord of Death.
But look! Above and beyond the Lord of Death there is a Buddha pointing at the moon, a symbol of freedom, clarity and peace. In some representations, as in the one above, there is also a "Pure Land" where beings who have not been able to reach full liberation can go to receive final instructions from Buddha Amitābha - the closest thing to the Christian idea of Heaven. And in the upper corner of each realm there is a Buddha pointing the way out.