Samsara, The Wheel of Life and The Three Root Poisons.

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Samsara, The Wheel of Life and The Three Root
Poisons.
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The Wheel of Life (Wheel of Samsara)
Life
The wheel originally came from Hinduism, but was
adopted by Buddhism. It helps people to
understand the idea of Re-birth and how they can
affect their lives, and future lives.
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Wheel of Life
There are 4 circles
Each circle represents the constant cycle of
rebirth
Centre
At the centre are the 3 root poisons of greed,
hatred and delusion. They feed off of each other
which fuels the cycle. They also depend on each
other and are shown to be eating each other.
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The Three Root Poisons
Notice how theyre biting at each others tails.
This is because they eat each other. It means
that one poison leads to another.
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Wishing Passion Ambition
Greed
Dislike Resentment Irritability
Hatred
Confusion Prejudice Dogmatism
Ignorance
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The Three Root Poisons
These poisons are deeply embedded within us and
our personalities are very attached to each of
them. This is why we find it very hard to rid
ourselves of these Fetters , Hindrances,
Knots, and why it is so difficult to escape
from the Wheel of Samsara. These are the cause
of all actions that produce bad Kamma and are the
cause of all human suffering.
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Wheel of Life
There are 4 circles
2nd from the centre
This shows images of one being through six
different existences. Three good existences are
shown on the left and three evil existences on
the right.
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Wheel of Life
There are 4 circles
Third circle from the centre
Heaven
These are the realms through which rebirth can
move.
Human
Titans
Ghosts
Animal
Hell
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Wheel of Life
There are 4 circles
12 Stages of Dependent Origination
This is supposed to give an idea about how things
link to each other as cause and effect.
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Dependent Origination
This is the idea that what you do in your life,
can affect what happens in future lives. So the
origins of future births are dependent on past
life that was lived. This means that some
rebirths are going to be less happy than others,
due to the previous life.
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12 Stages of Dependent Origination

1. Ignorance
2. Kammic Formation
3. Consciousness
4. Mind and Matter
5. Empty House
6. Contact
7. Feeling
8. Craving
9. Grasping
10. Becoming
11. Rebirth
12. Old age and death

You do not need to memorise them all. But you do
need to understand the basic idea, that our
origin is dependent on the actions of those that
came before us.
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Should the Wheel of Life be seen as a Literal
interpretation of the process of Samsara?
The short answer is no. Buddhism arose in a Hindu
country and so many of its ideas were
incorporated. Some Buddhists do believe in such
things as heavens, hells, demons etc. But for the
purpose of this course, we just need to know that
the wheel is a pictorial representation of
Samsara and the cycle of rebirth. It reminds
people how their actions have effects on future
rebirths.
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1. What does the word Samsara mean?
2. What is the Wheel of Life?
3. What are the three root poisons?
4. Why are the three root poisons at the centre of
   the Wheel of Life?
5. How can you escape Samsara?