This week’s meditation session is led by Kimberly Brown and the theme is Interdependence. The guided meditation begins at 10:15.

The Wheel of Life depicts the concept of cyclical existence, illustrating how everything is interconnected in six realms of existence. This painting of the Wheel of Life is attributed to Lhadripa Ringzing Chungyalpa, who lived from 1912 until 1977 in Sikkim.

The Lord of Death, Yama, grips the Wheel of Life, which is driven by three animals representing the mental poisons—attachment (rooster), anger (snake), and ignorance (pig)—at its hub.

In the next circle from the center, people move upward to higher states of consciousness and downward to afflicted states. Their actions, polluted by these poisons, propel them in a continuous cycle of rebirth (samsara) in the six realms of existence, depicted in the large segments around the two inner circles. These are the realms of gods and demi-gods (top left), humans (top right), animals (lower left), hungry ghosts (lower right), and hells (bottom). The wheel’s outer rim is the symbolic chain of causality that binds this closed circle with no clear way out.

Awakening through enlightenment breaks the cycle of samsara, leading to liberation from suffering and to a higher state of consciousness. The Buddha discerned a pathway out of the cycle, which is why he appears both outside the wheel, at the upper right, and within it, pointing the way out by teaching the Dharma. Watch this video to discover the many intricate layers of meaning depicted in the Wheel of Life.