As a way of introducing this fascinating symbol I thought I would start with a question. What is the context for studying this symbol?
My answer is that the central context is the same as it would be whatever Buddhist teaching or Dharma, as it is called, whatever aspect of the Dharma we were studying. The only purpose of any Dharma teaching is to help us to wake up and see, to know directly, how things are. The Dharma is here to support us, encourage us through clarifying our views and practice.
A teaching story from a Buddhist text called the White Lotus Sutra portrays the Dharma being like a father who sees their child innocently playing in a burning house. This child is absorbed in play unable to see the danger it is in. This is us, the child, absorbed in our fantasies, trying to make everything alright, trying to make the world work, trying to lose our discomfort and our dissatisfaction and yet from the perspective of Reality with a capital R, we are in a burning house. The burning house is the confusion of views, of hopes and fantasies that we have created and inhabit, the father is the clarity and greater perspective that is embodied in the Dharma.
The four reminders that I am going to be talking about this evening directly address our tendency towards confusion and delusion. They point to the fact that most of the time we take our life for granted; that we forget so easily what a rare and precious opportunity we have in simply finding ourselves in this human life. We forget that it will end; that we are going to die. We also forget that actions have consequences and we forget that the happiness we are always consciously or unconsciously pursuing is in its very nature fleeting and transitory. Facing these tendencies towards forgetfulness, self absorption and delusion are the context for exploring this symbol. The Wheel of Life is unwavering in its power to reflect back to us the actual situation we are all in. When we look at this symbol we might feel that its pictorial references are somewhat alien to us. This is because the image arose in medieval Tibet and so it has certain cultural trappings which may confuse us. I would really encourage you not to get lost in the literal level of the image but try to look to what it is pointing to. Buddhism is too young here in the west for it to have given rise to native imagery and symbolism that perhaps speaks to us with more ease through our cultural references and so we do have to peer through the haze of this foreign culture to find the meaning for us today. My feeling is that this symbol is as pertinent to us as it was to the medieval Tibetans. We are still working with the same truths, the same delusions and the same mystery of being human.
I have chosen to talk about the four reminders because they make reference to the cosmology described by the Wheel of Life and introduce the key insights that underpin this image. They are also traditionally taught as a preliminary to many teachings. Hopefully the reason for that will become clear. Before beginning I need to point out that in Buddhist ideas and presentation of the Dharma there is a tendency to either present the spiritual life as a path, a series of steps sequentially developing out of and transcending our starting point or it is presented as an unfoldment or unveiling of that which is always present and something which we are never separate from. Succinctly put, any presentation of the teaching tends towards transcendence or immanence.
I shall be presenting this material from the position or bias of immanence. I do this consciously because I suffered for years, and to some extent, continue to suffer under the delusion that I am fundamentally not alright. I am flawed to my core. I think this is not uncommon, particularly in the West, where there seems to be an uneasy and irrational shame or guilt hardwired into many of our psyches. I am not going to address why that may be, I am simply pointing to why my teaching has this bias towards immanence. I strongly believe and want us all to know that we are basically okay. I say to you as I have to say to myself that we are good enough and we simply need to relax into that truth rather than struggling to get anywhere else, become something different. Immanence suggests to me that we practice to become more fully who we already are. That doesn't make things any less challenging, but for me, it feels a more authentic and realistic way of practicing. I am very suspicious of any teaching which is based on the premise that we have to cajole, direct, even force or repress parts of ourselves to get them into the imagined right or even perfect ways of being. What I have witnessed is that this way of practice is often followed by those who feel comfortable suppressing, ignoring or even denying the uncomfortable, messy bits of their psyche. It tends to create rather lop sided practitioners. Immanence to me suggests building a relationship with all that we are. It suggests ending the war with our self and through that the war with life.
So having said that, what are the four reminders? They are firstly, that this human life is precious. Secondly, that it is impermanent. Thirdly, that our life exists within and through the unshakable laws of karma, and finally, that our attempts to bolster ourselves against discomfort by our endless pursuit of lasting pleasure and happiness within the mundane material world will always fail.
This precious human birth
Buddhism believes that we have lived and died innumerable times. We pass from life to life swept along by the consequences of our actions. The symbol reveals six realms that we may have known. We see six categories of being. Remember this is a symbol, it points towards a truth. Many, many separate realms could have been illustrated; the principle would have remained the same. There are many realms of existence and we find ourselves within the range of experiences called the human realm. What is illustrated is in the lower sections depict the hell realm, the animal realm and the hungry ghost realm. I will say more about these individually later in this series. To find ourselves in these realms we experience no leisure, no time for practice and reflection. We may find ourselves suffering so extremely either psychologically or physically that we are overwhelmed by the experience. We live completely lost within the suffering. Or maybe we may find ourselves searching endlessly for something to fill some hole that we feel within us. We may find ourselves driven by compulsion or addiction. In these lower realms we may find it simply hard to hear the teachings as we are lost in blind unawareness, instinctual beings without the ability to reflect upon experience.
Then there are the upper realms of the Gods and Asuras. These beings are filled with, or are chasing after bliss and pleasure. Life is contented for most. Every whim is met. Pleasure comes easily and if it is not present it is easily refound. There is no sense of urgency, no suffering except envy and jealousy of those who have more pleasure. Many of these beings imagine they are eternal and have no sense that their present conditions will eventually fall away.
Between these upper and lower realms we have the human realm. Here many of us live in a mixture of ease and suffering and this is said to be extremely advantageous, although it may not always feel that way. We suffer enough to experience an urge to seek answers. We experience enough ease to gain mental and physical space to seek and make use of the answers we find.
This is the central factor in seeing the preciousness of our human birth. But there is more. Its preciousness is multiplied because we find ourselves born in a time and a place where the Dharma is available to us. The records of previous human beings attempts to make use of this rare opportunity are available to us. We can look to them for guidance and inspiration. We still have to make this exploration our own but we only have to look at the world around us to know how unlikely this is to find the Dharma that values us as we are right now; that tells us we have all we need to gain complete enlightenment for our own benefit and for the benefit of all life.
The preciousness is heightened by seeing the many pitfalls that can beset the human birth that sweep us away from this precious opportunity. Poverty, political oppression, physical and psychological suffering all take away the possibility of making use of this rare gift.
No doubt we also know to some extent the sicknesses of our current era. We can see in ourselves and those around us the seductive nature of materialism. We see ourselves and others swept along by the cycle of needing to earn money to allow us to pay for the things that we believe will alleviate the discomfort, emptiness and stress of our lives. What is perverse is that the stress arises in part because we are spending so much of our time working or supporting others to work to create money to alleviate or compensate us for the stress and have lost touch with ourselves.
The preciousness can also be lost in the detrimental effect of having so much intellectual sophistication because of the technology available to us. Knowledge has never been so available but it heightens the need for instant gratification, instant answers and solutions. This can lead to a cynicism and a loss of ability to slowly develop a spiritual practice based on faith, patience and mystery and perhaps most important of all an honesty about our own experience.
So this is the precious human birth that we are urged to reflect on. The more we know this to be true the greater will be our desire to practice and take this opportunity to become wholly human.
Impermanence
Linked to birth is the reminder of impermanence. In a little over a hundred years no one on this planet who is alive today will be here. The billions of people surrounding us will all have died. In two or three centuries from now few if any traces of us will remain. At most we will be a name on a grave or a book but no memory of the things that preoccupy us, that drive us day by day will remain.
I find this very challenging and I know it is very important. In those rare moments when I know that I will die it awakes me to my priorities. Seeing my parents die, seeing my friends die, I am beginning to accept I cannot hide from that same fate. If I die today will I have done all that I need to do. Will I have said all that I need to say? These questions and reflections really make us wake up to our priorities. It seems so easy to postpone what we know we have to do. The common avoidance of living our life fully seems to come from not wanting to disturb the status quo. The fantasy that when everything else has been taken care of then I will live my life is stripped away by facing death. It brings a mixture of pathos, of sadness but also a freedom. The things that constrict us seem less important. By reflecting on impermanence we gain a momentum to our life that is encouraging us to do what we have to do right now before it is too late. The closeness of death brings a reprioritising of how we spend our time and energy. Our true values become visible in the reality of death.
The great wheel of life is held by death, impermanence, we can see it as this terrifying monster depicted in the symbol or as a precious friend bringing us alive and awake to our values and priorities.
Karma
We will all have heard this term and tonight I shall just say a few things about it. The reminder that we are being asked to hear is that willed actions have consequences. There are two aspects to this teaching. Firstly, our current life situation is a result of our past willed actions. The activities, thoughts and words that we create now are building our future life. This is the law of karma. Karma has these two aspects to it that encourage us to live with more patience and acceptance knowing that our present circumstances are the consequences of our past. It also brings energy and alertness to the quality of our actions in the present knowing that they are creating our future.
I struggle with the concept of Karma because I hear, be a good boy or you will go to hell, which just makes me want to scream and break the furniture. What I have found useful is to hear consciousness described as a vast storehouse of seeds or as a deep well influenced by the natural laws of karma.
There is no overbearing figure judging me or threatening punishment. It is simply the natural order of things that actions have consequences. The well and the storehouse point to an understanding of the great mystery of being alive. We are so much more than our comparatively petty ego construct. Our life is underpinned by great reservoirs of being that we have little conscious access to yet which we are influenced by and affect our actions. Every willed action of body or mind creates a seed that is placed in the great seed house. This means that nothing that we do is ever lost to these deeper levels of our being. We can feel the truth of this in our body and our mind. We can explore the felt sense of the body and bring back into consciousness experiences, memories and stories that we carry and continually recreate in our physical body. The body is a great somatic storehouse. These powerful forces left unattended, unacknowledged can manifest in illnesses. It may be the only way the body has left to point us to the truth of our lives. The body and mind are a continuum. We can recognise how our thoughts, views and memories are creating our understanding and perception of life. We can feel our body respond to stimuli before the conscious mind has had a chance to catch up. The seeds are placed in the storehouse and ripen instantaneously when the conditions are right. A memory triggered by a similar situation in the present ripens into a response that is a re-enactment of what is held in that memory. The Mind body continuum looks for pattern to make sense of the chaos of life and will interpret experience dependent on what patterns lay in our unique store house.
The well has a similar sense to it. What I hear from this teaching is that if we want to drink from the well its best not to pee in it.
The way I have been talking so far suggests a relationship purely to an inner life, an inner world but Karma also points to the fact that outer and inner are simply constructs to help us operate. The apparently outer world we experience is also arising as a consequence of karma. This takes us back to the six realms. Each being may be standing in the same landscape, in the same room but each one will experience it differently. Karma directly affects our ability to see the world clearly. It is affecting how you are hearing what I am saying. It is affecting what you latch onto and what you miss. It is affecting your emotional and mental response. Karma creates our world. Our actions create our world and the life we live within it.
The Tibetans have a great attitude because of this reminder. The great teachers remind us to thank our enemies and our suffering. They see these difficulties as an opportunity not to perpetuate the karmic cycle by pushing away the hardship but instead to have patience and wholly be with the difficulty until it has passed. This doesn't mean we are passive but it is a very creative engaged response to every aspect of our life. It encourages us not to deceive ourselves to pretend everything is fine and it lessens the tendency for wishful thinking. If only that or that was different then I could be happy, fulfilled, complete etc.
This is why we meditate to have the clarity and openness to see into our lives and to have the unbiased curiosity and interest to be with our experience as it is.
Defects of Samsara
The fourth and final reminder is that within the conditioned universe there is no place that we will find lasting happiness. Our neurotic cravings, needs and desires will never be satisfied. There will always be more. The more we resist the reality of the cycle of life and death the more pain we create for ourselves and others. Samsara is the name for this whole mass of life and death spinning on the wheel locked into cyclic, repetitive patterns of behaviour. This reminder encourages us to slow the grasping after and the resistance to the flow of experiences that arises out of having been born. The myriad experiences that arise by simply being alive and moving towards our death.
We are encouraged to see life as a mirage, a floating bubble and to notice that all that we try to construct to bring lasting safety and permanence is built on sand. Security is ungraspable. To attend to this truth brings perspective. We will never get it right. Our hopes and wishes will never be fully met. This is how it is. All we can do is choose to act with awareness to minimise harm to our self and others. All we can do is choose to act more for the benefit of others and slowly give up trying to create something, anything that will shield us from the difficulties and challenges of finding ourselves alive in this swirling mass of chaotic humanity.
Conclusion
These four reminders are here to help us. If we take our life for granted, ignore our mortality. Ignore the repercussions of our actions and believe it is possible to find lasting happiness in Samsara we will find it hard to practice. These reminders are here to support us. Trungpa, one of the early teachers that came to the west from Tibet in the late sixties uses the term spiritual materialism. He talks about spiritual practice being diverted subtly or not so subtly into simply trying to make life better or bearable. He talks about the dangers of using practice to try to escape our actual experience. The four reminders encourage us to be with what is rather than chasing some idealised notion of what could be or might be. The wheel is propelled by greed, hatred and delusion. It is propelled by resistance, grasping and confusion.
If we want to help unravelling this mass of confusion and suffering we have to start at the beginning which is where we are right now. We are in this precious human body. By opening to this fortuitous mystery we begin to see the impermanent nature of our views, hopes and fears. This leads us to begin to notice how things arise and pass away and that we can be active and creative within this process. We can begin to be with our experience and not simply be in it and at its mercy. We can slow our fighting with ourselves, with life and begin to find ways to engage with this mystery in a way that we can bear Reality for our own sake and for the sake of all life.
