Wheel of Life

This wheel Consists of four circles. The story says that at the time of Gautama Buddha, King Bhimbisaar was presented with a jewel enthroned armor by the King of Udayana. The armor was very beautiful and very expensive. King Bhimbisaar was worried how to repay King Udayana's gift. What could be even more expensive than this? He was a disciple of Buddha, so he asked Lord Buddha what should he do. Lord Buddha instructed him to make this painting and present it to king Udayana.
King Udayana studied this picture, meditated on this picture and attained Nirvana.
The picture depicts Lord of Death (Yama/Mara) holding four concentric wheels in his mouth. These wheels tell about the fact that we, as we are today are in the grasp of Mara, and continue to take birth, die and take rebirth. In the process we are controlled by our Karmas and our emotions, the two move us like threads of a puppet. Bounded by this thread we bear the fruit of our Karmas, some times good, sometimes bad.

The wheel also has a Full Moon depicting the possibility of attainment of Buddhahood in this lifetime itself. And it normally contains a text in Tibetan, meaning:

"Gather up and cast away
 Engage in Buddha's teaching
 Like a great elephant in a house of mud
 Conquer the Lord of Death's Battalion

 Whoever with great conscientiousness
 Practices the discipline of the Dharma
 Abandoning the wheel of births
Will make an end to Suffering"

Thus, wheel of life tells about where we are, and how we are puppet in the hands of Mara. It also tells us that it is possible to be out of this wheel and the way to be out of this wheel. The eight fold Noble path: Right View, Right Resolve, Right Speech, Right Actions, Right Livelihood, Right Exercise, Right Memory, and Right Concentration.

The Four Wheels 
Inner circle:

Depicted as a pig (Ignorance), a bird (attachment) and a snake (anger), each holding other's tail in mouth and forming a circle. This tells us about the root cause of all our miseries Ignorance, Attachments, Anger. another beautiful thing that it tells us is that they are in circle, that is each gives rise to another. Due to Ignorance we get attached to things/persons/posts, the object of attachment is bound to give us anger. If someone breaks an object we are attached to, we feel anger. If the person we are attached he himself or someone's does something to cause separation, we feel anger. In this bout of anger we do actions which further our ignorance.

The second circle:
In the picture it is depicted by four men in light symbolizing the positive Karmas, and four images in dark representing the negative Karmas. This wheel tells the about Karmas, both positive (light) and negative (dark). Controlled by the inner circle of ignorance, attachment and anger, we do actions (karmas), which may be positive (like the actions of someone filled with emotion of Nation Pride, or environment care, or simply helping others), or may be negative (like the actions of someone filled with emotion of greed, deceit etc)

The third circle

This wheel shows the five realms where a person takes birth based on his/her karma. The five realms are:

1. Hell Realm
2. Hungry Ghost Realm
3. Animal realm
4. Human Realm
5. Deva Realm (Contains both devas and Asuras as per His holiness Dalai Lama)

Most reading this are in the Human Realm (Hopefully ;) )

The fourth wheel

The fourth wheel tells about the dependent origination, the law of cause and effect. It has twelve components: Ignorance, Karma, Consciousness, Name and Form, Senses, Contact, Feeling, Craving, Grasping, Becoming, Birth, Aging and Death. How they are linked and what messages it shows implicitly and explicitly will form part of another blog post.