Dharma Wheel

An excerpt from a teaching called the Eight-fold Path by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Recently it has come to me very strongly that if we lose sight or connection with the very foundations of the path of Buddha dharma, we tend to lose our way eventually.  There are well-documented, well-preserved teachings that Lord Buddha gave that are very pristine and very concise.  They concern the first turning of the wheel of Dharma.  This is what Lord Buddha taught during the time of his life.  As the Dharma grew and spread, there were other developments within the Dharma.  So, there are basically three levels of the Buddha dharma.  One is called the Theravadan point of view, the original teachings that Lord Buddha himself taught.  There is the Mahayana point of view, the accomplishment of the original teachings, and the addition of the idea of wisdom and compassion – primarily the idea of the Bodhisattva vow – this was all taught by highly realized Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.  Then there is Vajrayana, which is what we actually practice, and which has a lot of ritual to it.  A lot depends on the inner rather than the outer display.  It is powerful yet subtle.  There is technology that goes with it, and as one accomplishes the technology, one begins to advance and change and move ever closer toward awakening.

We should never consider the first level of Buddhism to be somehow lesser.  Instead we should think of the first level of Buddhism as the absolutely necessary foundation.  If you don’t accomplish and don’t understand what Buddha originally taught, then there is no real understanding later on.  I would consider it to be something like building a house.  If you are building a house you don’t want to build it on a sandy beach where it slopes down to the sea and the waves are big.  You want to build it on a very firm foundation.  You want to pour your concrete slab, and make it really secure.  When you are practicing the path of the Buddha dharma, it is very good to understand these primary teachings.  To understand their meaning to the degree that as you move further on the path, you can always reflect back on the original teachings to give you context, strength, and inspiration.  It is necessary to understand exactly what did the Buddha taught.

When we talk about the Buddha teaching, we say, “turning the wheel, an expression meaning, “give the dharma.”  The symbol of dharma is a ship’s steering wheel, an eight-spoke wheel, and it symbolizes the eight-fold path.  “Turning the wheel” is a symbolic way of saying, “teaching the eight-fold path.”

When the Buddha first turned the wheel, he taught the four noble truths. The Buddha himself was considered peerless, fully awakened, fully developed.  Having experienced all of the content of samsara and nirvana, through his realization, and in his awakened state he was able to take all that he saw, and make it concise, something very understandable.  Small in words, but big in meaning. This is what the Buddha taught.  You can’t argue with it.

He first taught that in samsara or in life, suffering is all-pervasive, meaning that life is suffering.  We don’t like to think of it that way.  We prefer to think that we’re happy, and we try to coax ourselves into a happy mood.  Still if we look around we see that there is suffering wherever we look.  The human suffering is old age, sickness, and death.  I’ve experienced two out of three, and I know I’ve done the other one but it is hard to remember.  We all know that this is true.  Human beings suffer from old age, sickness, and death.  You can try to think positively about it, but we all know that when it gets down to it, when you’re sick, you feel rotten, and if you are critically ill, it is so much worse.  It’s horrible to have your own body betray you.  If you get to the point where you are experiencing old age, we can look at Madonna, and we can look at all the different wonderful people who have kept in shape and all, and we think, “Oh, its not so bad.”  Its bad!  Getting old is bad.  For those of you who don’t believe and are too young to know, it’s bad. And that is the suffering of the human realm.

Each different realm has its own form of suffering.  For instance, animals suffer from fear and stupidity.  An elephant is much stronger than its trainer, and much stronger than the means usually used to contain them, but they don’t know that.  Elephants are very smart in their own way, but in that particular way, they are not so smart.  In India you see bullocks pulling carts and what not, and their whole life is just toil and work.  They experience the whip if they don’t do it.  That stupidity keeps them there.  I mean, they could basically turn around and knock the driver senseless if they so chose.  They are powerful animals but they don’t know that.  And so that’s the suffering of the animal kingdom.  That and fear since in the animal kingdom you are either prey or predator.  And even predator can be prey sometimes.  So fear is rampant.

The Buddha taught that everywhere you look, suffering is all-pervasive.  That no matter what a person’s life looks like, there is suffering.  And then he taught the cause of suffering is attachment or desire.

When we come from a materialistic society and an ordinary world, we think to ourselves, “How can that be?  Suffering is when you don’t have enough money.  Suffering is when you get hit by a car.  Suffering is when your beloved child grows up and does drugs or something.”  We can name all of these sufferings that happen to us, and so it is hard for us to understand how desire or attachment can actually be the cause of suffering. The way it is explained is that while things do happen and they are caused by our karma, the cause and effect relationships that we have given rise to in the past, and we see our karma ripening as events that seem to happen to us.  What really makes us suffer is our reaction.

© Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo