Rubin Museum Paper: Wheel of Existence

by J.U.C. (John Unver Culkin) | Dated: December 10, 2018

“WHEEL OF LIFE” WAS THE MOST FASCINATING ONE AT THE RUBIN MUSEUM

Buddhism is an ancient religion with a rich and complicated history. With the goal of trying to fully understand one Buddhist work of art, we are able to unravel some of the mysteries of what went through their heads and what they believed. When I went to the Rubin Museum with this goal in mind, there were multiple floors of fascinating artworks which made choosing a tricky endeavor. There were sculptures cast in metal and stone of creatures from the fantasy realm, many intricate and skillful paintings, common tools from that era, and even a section in the museum with an entire Buddhist shrine! Despite all of these choices, I still found the most fascinating one was the Wheel of Life.

The Wheel of Life, also known as “Bhavacakra” is a 19th-century Tibetian work that symbolizes the cyclicism of death and rebirth. It is painted with pigments on a 45.5-inch height and a 30.625 width [Rubin Museum] but has various renditions. This was one of the most vivid and intricate paintings in the museum, with multiple layers of symbolism going down to the core, like the layers of a jawbreaker candy. This wheel also is held by what seems to be a Buddhist deity. I personally took an interest in trying to decipher the figures for greater meaning.

To comprehend the Wheel of Life, it needs to be followed as a thematic maze “The picture path to follow begins in the center arrow of the wheel. There, the three spiritual poisons are depicted:
a black pig for ignorance,
a green snake for envy and hatred, and
a red cock for lust and greed” [Dharmapala Thangka Centre], from that center there is a path to evil, while on the other side there is the path to good. A person on either path is driven towards either positive or negative rebirths and an upward or downward spiral through reincarnations leading to more suffering or more happiness. Through this path of good or evil, in the outermost ring of the image are the 12 interdependent causes that affect the person’s journey through this wheel of life.

The first image is of a blind man, meant to represent spiritual blindness– ignorance of the wheel of life. The second is of a potter, who is creating his own things and in that sense creating his own karma for the wheel of life. The third picture again deals with ignorance, it is a monkey swinging through the trees, symbolizing the obliviousness through which we go through our lives, hopping from one obstacle to the next, not leaving room for introspection and inner phenomena. The fourth picture is symbolizing physical and mental energy as two people who are bound eternally on the stream of life. The fifth picture is a house that has five windows and one door, it is five windows because it relates to the sensations of hearing, feeling, smelling, touching, and tasting and the door is to bring things back outside.

This wheel is held by a demon to represent the impermanence of everything, even the wheel itself!

The sixth is of two people in physical contact, as a result of the senses. The seventh is the power of emotion like being struck in the eye with an arrow (think like the Cupid’s arrow). The eighth show sexual desire as a woman offers a man something to drink. The ninth is of the wish for permanence in the fulfillment of desires, as illustrated by a man trying to pick a fruit from the entangled branches. The tenth is of birth of new life, demonstrated as marriage. The eleventh is a consequence of that new life, with the woman in the position of giving birth. The twelfth shows death, which is the end of all existence.

Through the paths of good and evil, a person encounters the 12 interdependent causes which result in them being reincarnated into one of the 6 spiritual worlds the Buddhists believed in, represented by the second outermost ring of the wheel. The first world “Abode of the so-called Gods” is a paradise where people and gods are rewarded for their good deeds in previous lives, but they eventually perish in this world as well to be reincarnated. The second world “The World of Titanis” is one of constant suffering due to war, where they are always in a war to defeat the gods and satiate their own selfish desires. The third world “The World of Men” is also one of constant suffering, where they are ignorant of the gods and experience an endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.

The fourth world “The World of Animals” is of suffering not by oneself, but by being harmed by other creatures. The fifth world is of ghosts who can never be relieved from hunger or thirst and remain this way indefinitely. The sixth world is one of the most severe sufferings, with freezing and burning temperatures reserved for the most serious acts. This wheel is held by a demon to represent the impermanence of everything, even the wheel itself!

The Buddhist doctrine of the Wheel of Life seems to be represented in the clearest way is Samsara. “The concept of Samsara in Buddhism refers to the cycle of life, which includes birth, living, death, and returning to life. The term can be literally translated as “continuous movement.” Samsara is the continually repeating cycle of birth and death, where beings cycle through six realms of existence. This concept is closely related to the ideas of karma and Nirvana.” [buddhists.org]

If Samsara is a spinning wheel for life, then Karma indicates what the quality of the wheel will be for you in your next life due to your actions as retribution, and Nirvana is where you no longer need a wheel because you’ve surpassed it, and have achieved eternal bliss and oneness with reality. The Wheel of Life indicates exactly through what process Samsara operates. Any new life starts at the center, if the life avoids the three poisons they stay on the good path, and if the life indulges in the three poisons they are on the bad path. The 12 interdependent causes factor into how a person lives their life on the path, and when the person dies, they are sent to one of the 6 worlds to be reincarnated based on their karma level, and the cycle starts from the center again.

The way the wheel and its components work also does not contradict any other Buddhist doctrines even it seems that it might. For example “Sarvam Dukkha is a Sanskrit term that is generally translated, “All is suffering” This is square one in Buddha’s philosophy of life” [Hamilton 225]. If this is true, why is one of the 6 worlds a world of paradise? The simple answer is that all of these worlds are transient in an endless state, so even if the paradise may feel eternal, eventually it will also go down in death and suffering. This maintains the Buddhist view that Nirvana is the only true escape from human suffering.

Moksha from the Hindu religion is very similar to Nirvana from Buddhism– the only way to break out of the wheel of reincarnation. An enlightened person who has achieved Moksha “lives daily life in a state of perfect peace, free from fear and suffering. Such one is free to ‘see himself in all, and all in himself” [Bresnan 67] and “To be freed from the turning wheel of Samsara- ultimately that’s what it’s all about” [Bresnan 67]. Clearly, both religions believe in reincarnation as “Samsara” and find Samsara to be a tedious, unpleasant process that is best to surpass by becoming an enlightened one and achieving “Moksha” in Hinduism and “nirvana” in Buddhism respectively.

The main difference between Hinduism and Buddhism in how they handle conquering Samsara is that Buddhists have a clearly defined strategy to attain it. While Buddhists have the Eightfold path, there is no direct way to achieve Moksha, as many Hindu sects have their own beliefs on how it is attained, and use mentors to guide them. Every Buddhist looking to attain Nirvana must follow the eight principles:
right understanding,
right resolve,
right speech,
right action,
right livelihood,
right effort,
right mindfulness, and
right concentration.
Another interesting difference between Buddhism and Hinduism is that besides reincarnation resulting in a better or worse life, the actual “worlds” and “interdependent causes” in the cycle of Samsara are not part of Hindu theologies, nor do they have their own Bhavacakra.

A common debate about Buddhism is whether it is truly a religion, or rather a philosophy and way of life one can partake in for self-improvement. The definition of religion is not very strict, so various practices and religions could be considered to be one or the other without the answer being wrong. Some institutional definitions of religion include “Recognition on the part of man of some higher unseen power as having control of his destiny, and as being entitled to obedience, and worship.” [Course Reader] or “By means of an interwoven set of symbols, narratives, doctrines, rituals, ethical prescriptions, and social institutions, a religion aims to provide an appropriate way of being cognitive, emotionally, and behaviorally (both individual and collective) to that which is conceived as the ultimate sacred reality.”[Course Reader]

With these sources, we can attempt to correlate the Buddhist doctrines to the definitions proposed… “…some higher unseen power as having control of his destiny…” in this case would be Samsara and Karma, but these are states of energy, not gods, and the Buddhist does have some control of his destiny by changing his lifestyle, which in turn changes the reincarnations. The closest thing to a “deity” the Buddhists worship would be Siddartha, the original Buddha, and the “religious worship” of Siddartha would be following the Eightfold Path. “…aims to provide an appropriate way of being cognitive, emotionally, and behaviorally…” is a perfect description of the Eightfold Path, as it is a total lifestyle change meant to provide people with this sacred spiritual place.

Buddhism does follow the definition of religion, but only if the definitions do not require the object of worship to be an actual entity, and the worship of non-sentient states of existence is considered virtually the same as the worship of a deity. This is supported by the fact that most people in the population would consider Buddhism a religion. The only way Buddhism could not be considered to be a religious practice is if an overly strict and precise definition was used that would in effect also exclude many other belief systems that are considered religions.

This project and the Ruben Museum gave me an in-depth understanding of Buddhism and how it functions. I enjoyed being a cryptographer breaking down the Bhakacakra, a very convoluted and confusing image, into its individual components containing the doctrines within. It must have been very innovative at the time for someone to have created a one-sheet roadmap to an entire theology. It makes me wonder how effectively the Koran, Bible, Torah, etc. could be condensed into a single image, and if it cannot be, is that because Buddhism is more simple and concise from point A (existence) to point B (sacred realm)? I could also imagine the Bhakacakra accelerating the spread of Buddhism across society once it was conceived, because anyone totally unaware of the belief system could understand its fundamental ideology with the image and a few sentences of explanation, and would see it at many Buddhist temples they had passed by.

I was also able to examine the question of “What is religion?” more fully with this project. Initially, I was fully convinced that atheism could not be a religion, as it is a negation of religion itself. Now I see that many of the behaviors and beliefs atheists have can also be considered spiritual, in the sense that science and math are supposed to be the one size fits all explanation for any and all phenomena in the physical and metaphysical world.

_ . _

Citations:
Bresnan, Patrick. Awakening: An Introduction to the History of Eastern Thought
The Buddhist Wheel of Life, www.thangka.de/Gallery-2/Wheel/Whewords)el-Expl.htm.
Buddhists.org, 23 Oct. 2013, buddhists.org/buddhist-symbols/samsara-in-buddhism/.
Hamilton, Sue. Indian Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford
University Press, 2001.
“Wheel of Life-19th Century | Rubin Museum of Art.” The Rubin rubinmuseum.org/collection/artwork/wheel-of-life-2006-66-131.

Special Thanks To: Julie Mardin for her support idea of posting this piece and seeing the “Wheel of Life” painting together at the Rubin Museum on July 27, 2023.

Photo (left): Bircan Ünver, Julie Mardin, and at the center the #WheelOfLife painting in the #RubenMuseum in #NYC (6th Floor).
Dated: July 27, 2023 | #LMGlobalOrg

This photo and visit to the Ruben Museum is a Tribute to J.U.C.
Photos #LMGlobalOrg & the last photo by Cameron at the Ruben Museum.

Disclosure: This paper was written by J.U.C. for his class “Philosophy of Religion HUP105″ at LaGuardia Community College in New York City, dated December 10, 2018.
Unfortunately, J.U.C.’s lifespan turned out too short. He left this world too young and too soon the following year on December 22, 2019.
This is an attempt to bring out this paper to light and give his ideas another form of life through the virtual world.
It is posted as it was located in an external drive in June 2023. – B.Ü. #LMGlobalOrg

The Story of the J.U.C. M-R-W-A
https://lightmillennium.org/juc-awards/juc-media-research-writing-awards-story.pdf