The bhavachakra or wheel of life is a visual teaching aid and meditation tool symbolically representing saṃsāra. It is found on the walls of Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries in the Indo-Tibetan region, to help both Buddhists and non Buddhists understand the core Buddhist teachings. The image consists of four concentric circles, held by Yama, the lord of Death, with an image of the Buddha pointing to the moon metaphysically representing the possibility for liberation from the suffering of reincarnation.
Saṃsāra is a Pali and Sanskrit word that means "wandering" as well as "world," wherein the term connotes "cyclic change" or, less formally, "running around in circles." Saṃsāra is referred to with terms or phrases such as transmigration/reincarnation, karmic cycle, or Punarjanman, and "cycle of aimless drifting, wandering or mundane existence". When related to the theory of karma it is the cycle of death and rebirth.
Rebirth in Buddhism refers to the teaching that the actions of a sentient being lead to a new existence after death, in an endless cycle called saṃsāra. This cycle is considered to be dukkha, unsatisfactory and painful. The cycle stops only if Nirvana (liberation) is achieved by insight and the extinguishing of craving. Rebirth is one of the foundational doctrines of Buddhism, along with karma and Nirvana. Rebirth was a key teaching of early Buddhism along with the doctrine of karma. In Early Buddhist Sources, the Buddha claims to have knowledge of his many past lives. Rebirth and other concepts of the afterlife have been interpreted in different ways by different Buddhist traditions.
Lamrim is a Tibetan Buddhist textual form for presenting the stages in the complete path to enlightenment as taught by Buddha. In Tibetan Buddhist history there have been many different versions of lamrim, presented by different teachers of the Nyingma, Kagyu and Gelug schools. However, all versions of the lamrim are elaborations of Atiśa's 11th-century root text A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment (Bodhipathapradīpa).
The ten realms, sometimes referred to as the ten worlds, are part of the belief of some forms of Buddhism that there are 240 conditions of life which sentient beings are subject to, and which they experience from moment to moment. The popularization of this term is often attributed to the Chinese scholar Chih-i who spoke about the "co-penetration of the ten worlds."
Saṃsāra in Buddhism and Hinduism is the beginningless cycle of repeated birth, mundane existence and dying again. Samsara is considered to be dukkha, suffering, and in general unsatisfactory and painful, perpetuated by desire and avidya (ignorance), and the resulting karma.
Karma is a Sanskrit term that literally means "action" or "doing". In the Buddhist tradition, karma refers to action driven by intention (cetanā) which leads to future consequences. Those intentions are considered to be the determining factor in the kind of rebirth in samsara, the cycle of rebirth.
Buddhist cosmology is the description of the shape and evolution of the Universe according to Buddhist scriptures and commentaries.
The four stages of awakening in Early Buddhism and Theravada are four progressive stages culminating in full awakening (Bodhi) as an Arahant.
An asura in Buddhism is a demigod or titan of the Kāmadhātu. They are described as having three heads with three faces each and either four or six arms.
A Deva in Buddhism is a type of celestial being or god who shares the god-like characteristics of being more powerful, longer-lived, and, in general, much happier than humans, although the same level of veneration is not paid to them as to Buddhas.
The position and treatment of animals in Buddhism is important for the light it sheds on Buddhists' perception of their own relation to the natural world, on Buddhist humanitarian concerns in general, and on the relationship between Buddhist theory and Buddhist practice.
Naraka is a term in Buddhist cosmology usually referred to in English as "hell" or "purgatory". It is a spiritual realm, where the consciousness of the sinners go after death. There are realms in this Buddhist hell, where each realm transcends each other qualitatively in nature and in every aspect. The more sins you commit, the deeper you go in the realms of Naraka. Another term used for the concept of hell in earlier writings is niraya. The Narakas of Buddhism are closely related to Diyu, the hell in Chinese mythology. A naraka differs from one concept of hell in Christianity in two respects: firstly, souls are not sent to Naraka as the result of a divine judgment or punishment; and secondly, the length of a soul's stay in a naraka is not eternal, though it is usually incomprehensibly long.
Humans in Buddhism are the subjects of an extensive commentarial literature that examines the nature and qualities of a human life from the point of view of humans' ability to achieve enlightenment. In Buddhism, humans are just one type of sentient being, that is a being with a mindstream. In Sanskrit Manushya means an Animal with a mind. In Sanskrit the word Manusmriti associated with Manushya was used to describe knowledge through memory. The word Muun or Maan means mind. Mind is collection of past experience with an ability of memory or smriti. Mind is considered as an animal with a disease that departs a soul from its universal enlightened infinitesimal behavior to the finite miserable fearful behavior that fluctuates between the state of heaven and hell before it is extinguished back to its infinitesimal behavior.
Avīci or Avici Mon is one of the hells (naraka) in Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, it is one of the twenty-eight hells located in the kingdom of Yama, where individuals are reborn for bearing false witness and outright lying while transacting business or giving charity. In Buddhism, it is the lowest level of the Naraka or "hell" realm, with the most suffering, into which the dead who have committed grave misdeeds may be reborn. It is said to be a cube 20,000 yojanas on each side, buried deep underneath the divine (nonvisible) earth. Avīci is often translated into English as "interminable" or "incessant", referring to suffering without periods of respite, although it is believed to be ultimately impermanent.
In Buddhism, sentient beings are beings with consciousness, sentience, or in some contexts life itself.
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha, "the awakened one".
Buddhist views, although varying on a series of canons within the three branches of Buddhism, observe the concept of euthanasia, or "mercy killing", in a denunciatory manner. Such methods of euthanasia include voluntary, involuntary, and non-voluntary.
There is widespread belief in ghosts in Tibetan culture. Ghosts are explicitly recognized in the Tibetan Buddhist religion as they were in Indian Buddhism, occupying a distinct but overlapping world to the human one, and feature in many traditional legends. When a human dies, after a period of uncertainty they may enter the ghost world. A hungry ghost has a tiny throat and huge stomach, and so can never be satisfied. Ghosts may be killed with a ritual dagger or caught in a spirit trap and burnt, thus releasing them to be reborn. Ghosts may also be exorcised, and an annual festival is held throughout Tibet for this purpose.
The Six Paths in Buddhist cosmology are the six worlds where sentient beings are reincarnated based on their karma, which is linked to their actions in previous lives. These paths are depicted in the Bhavacakra. The six paths are:
- the world of gods or celestial beings (deva) ;
- the world of warlike demigods (asura) ;
- the world of human beings (manushya) ;
- the world of animals (tiryagyoni) ;
- the world of hungry ghosts (preta) ;
- the world of Hell (naraka).
