Earlier, I shared with everyone a beautiful thangka featuring the wheel of existence, which led  me to realize that perhaps a little background on this concept would be in order.  This week I’ll be adding a series of articles outlining the various parts of this visual representation of the Dharma.

I’ll begin this series with a preface (hereafter posted) which delves into what ends visual aides are used in the practice of buddhism both today and traditionally in the past.  Put simply, there are a vast myriad of concepts, ideas, subtleties of language (as the original sanskrit is very “vague” in translation as certain eastern concepts are incongruous with western ideas) and lists which must be understood and internalized to fully comprehend the dharma.  Even monks acknowledged the vast memory needed to be a serious scholar of the teachings.  (In fact a text I’ll be writing on later contains the story of the noted Master Asanga attained the “meditative concentration of the stream of dharma, which is the vastly difficult to attain skill to recall spiritual teachings instantly; this skill took years to attain, since the body of buddhist literature and commentary is enormous)  The easiest way to memorize all this, other than constantly practicing and meditating is to create visual mnemonics.  These visual representations are further made more humanistic (anthropomorphized for those who are fans of big words) to make relatable.  The Wheel of Dharma is, like all mandalas, one of these aides.  Check back or follow our Twitter feed for the next installment of this series.