Dharma Wheel

-9-

“Will I be able to share with people what I discovered and attained? I have purified my mind through exerting an incredible amount of effort for any being. Will others be capable of walking this Path?”

Such were the Buddha’s concerns. He gave a searching look over the human world and saw that only a few could comprehend his teachings. How can he expand this Path and make it more accessible and simple?

The Buddha reexamined his experiences searching for the necessary components for attaining Truth. His deliberations aroused both waves of tension and confusion in his mind. Nevertheless, the Buddha abided in meditative equipoise and continued to deepen his Samadhi. ^[17]

The Buddha embraced the Wheel of Existence with his heavenly wisdom. He saw that suffering arose from ignorance following this causal link:

1. Ignorance.
2. Sankharas (Sanskaras) – residual impressions, traces of both skillful and unskillful experiences.
3. Individual consciousness – interaction of integrated sankharas.
4. Embryo consciousness – a type of consciousness that connects the individual consciousness with the physical body.^[18]
5. Organs of perception and action developing in the physical body.
6. Contact – interactions between outer objects and inner sensations.
7. Perception.
8. Dependence on pleasure and revulsion towards displeasure.
9. Intentions.
10. Actions (karma).
11. Birth in the illusory space of the six realms: Gods, Titans, human beings, animals, hungry ghosts and hell beings.
12. Dissolution and death which plunge all living beings back into ignorance.

“The power of ignorance is great. The wheel of pre-conditioned existence is durable. By renunciation I will turn it into the wheel of the sacred Dharma which will serve as a crossing between the world of suffering and the pure realm of perfection.”