The Wheel of Life

Everything that is has a cause which drives the wheel of life…

Many of the Sareoso diagrams include a cycle of twelve links with some similarity to the Buddhist “Wheel of Life”. This wheel embodies the view that every event is caused by something and results in something else. One example of this wheel is found in Diagram 54, where the 12 steps are labelled as follows.

KATRAMILDU	Ignorance
NAHI	Will
ZENTZU	Consciousness
ALDIORTZE	Time & Space
ADIMENDU	Mind-base
OHARMEN	Perception
HUNKIPEN	Feeling
IRRIKITZE	Craving
ITSATSI	Grasping
IZATASUN	Becoming
JAIOTZA	Birth
HERIOTZE	Death

There are many interpretations of the wheel, but one possible understanding is as follows, in the story of a human life:

A ripple in stillness (Ignorance) causes a turning away from unity towards creation and the Will-to-Be. This Will-to-Be causes a formless primordial Consciousness, and this in turn results in the beginning of time and space. The child is conceived.

With time and space, the possibility of senses and Mind-base arises, and then Perception begins. Every perception causes a Feeling, and we Crave pleasant feelings and the cessation of unpleasant ones.

We Grasp that which is pleasant and our being develops around this. We become what we grasp. The child is Born, but everything that is born immediately begins to grow old and die. In the final step of death, the wheel returns to stillness. Will another cycle take place?

The cycle can also work in reverse. For example, if we can cease craving, then we can simply observe the arising of feelings, and the moment of perception itself.

The Buddhist Wheel of Life

In Buddhism the twelve links are usually seen as referring to the cycle of birth and rebirth, and in the traditional wheel of life each link is illustrated by an image, which helps with understanding and remembering the meaning of the link. A cycle can be started anywhere, but a convenient starting place is Ignorance.  Here we can imagine the process that begins when someone dies, leading towards rebirth:

Ignorance is represented by a blind person. After death, a new cycle of rebirth is started because of ignorance of the possibility of escaping from the wheel.

[Will] Karma or formative actions is represented by a potter shaping a vase on a wheel. Actions in previous lives have an effect in shaping the possibilities for the new life.

Consciousness is represented by a monkey swinging from a tree. This is consciousness without form. I see an analogue of this in the process of waking from deep sleep or a period of unconsciousness. I wake up but I don’t know where I am, and sometimes there is even a moment of not having any context at all, but quickly something slips into position.

[Time & Space] Name and Form is represented by a boat with an oarsman and passengers. This represents the body and mental aggregates, passing over the sea of samsara. In the process of rebirth, this is the consciousness attaching to a new body – perhaps at the moment of conception? In my ‘waking up’ example, this is the point where I begin to have a sense of who and where I am.

[Mind-base] Six Sources is represented by an empty house, because this link represents the mechanism of the senses (5 external and the internal ‘mind’) ready to operate. In rebirth, perhaps this is about the formation of the sense organs, such as the eyes and ears of the foetus. In my self-observation, maybe this represents moments when the senses are at rest and my mind is quiet.

[Perception] Contact is represented by a couple embracing. An object, a sense faculty and consciousness make contact and produce perception. We seem now to be looking in detail at the way that interaction with the world operates. A moment of contact begins a sequence of events. I suppose that in a lifetime, there are many moments of contact, which have cumulative consequences.

Feeling is represented by an arrow in the eye. This violent image represents our immediate reaction to a moment of contact. By ‘feeling’ what is meant is a simple assessment of the perception as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. So for example, a perception of stubbing your toe is unpleasant, a perception of music might be pleasant, and a perception of wind blowing against the skin might be neutral.

Craving is represented by someone drinking. We want more of pleasant experiences, and we want to avoid unpleasant experiences.

Grasping is represented by picking fruit from a tree. We cling on to pleasant experiences, become attached to them. Looking in terms of rebirth, at death we reach out for another body.

Becoming is represented by a pregnant woman. One way of looking at this is that the previous set of links (perception to grasping) can represent the steady growth of the individual through a process of attachment, so that we become a particular person – of course this carries on through life, but can be seen as starting during foetal development in the womb. Aristotle is often quoted as saying “We are what we repeatedly do.”

Birth is represented by a woman giving birth. This can be understood as the moment of birth of a new individual, but also a continuous process of development – becoming, birth and then death. As soon as something is born, it begins to die, and the next link in the chain is old age and death.

Aging and death is represented by an old person and a corpse. In one sense, all of our life occurs in this one link from birth to death, but in another sense birth and death is going on in us all the time. And with death, we are back at the first link – ignorance will lead us into another rebirth.

Some Sources

Nice big photo of a wheel of life painting.

Some information by Thubten Chodron, an American Tibetan Buddhist Nun:

• The Wheel of Life.
• Links 4-12 (Name and Form, Six Sources, Contact, Feeling, Craving, Grasping, Becoming, Birth, Ageing and Death)
• Links 1-3: (Ignorance, Karma, Consciousness)

Richard Teall Talk on Dependent Origination at the Samatha Trust.

John Cianciosi talk on the Buddhist Wheel of Life at the Theosophical Society.

Wikipedia Article on Dependent Origination.

Wikipedia Article on the Buddhist Wheel of Life.

Book by Lama Jampa Thaye: Patterns in Emptiness: Understanding Dependent Origination in Buddhism, (Rabsel, 2019).

Gogo and Haragi

This article is also available as a printable PDF file: Gogo and Haragi

GOGO and HARAGI: diagrams 22 and 23 in the Sareoso Series

Diagrams 22 and 23 can be amalgamated into a single one with twelve divisions, which is similar to the dependent origination diagram (diagram 29). The diagram is also similar to one in the 12^th meeting of Worm Dragon Angel Seminars.

In the amalgamated diagram, the six divisions of the Gogo diagram 23 (Ezjakin, Nahimen, etc.) progress clockwise on the right hand half of the diagram. The six divisions of the Haragi diagram 22 (Herio, Jaiotze Dakit, etc.) progress anti-clockwise on the left hand half of the diagram.

Also shown on the amalgamated diagram is the Saros Octave of Man, illustrated below. For more information see The Octave of Man.

In the discussion below the names “Watcher” and “Sentinel” are used interchangeably, as are “I” and “Ego”.

The numbers shown on the amalgamated diagram are taken from the number of sub-divisions in each division of the Gogo and Haragi diagrams, and correspond to the Octave of Man.

Questions raised:

Why are the intervals filled by 4 and 7?
Why is Psyche the same as Will and why are they 4-fold?
Why is I the same as desire/craving and why is it 4?
Why is Mind Base the same as Watcher and why are they 7-fold?

The simple answer to the question of why 4 and 7 at the intervals is that they relate to Worlds and Cosmoses.
Perhaps it is not so with all octaves but specifically to the mind of man.
Are the intervals on the downward octave 4-fold and upward 7-fold? Or is it the other way round?!

The 12 is describing the whole of conditioning and how conditioning gives rise to consequences. Intervals are the points we can wake up.

One possibility for the question regarding psyche and 4 in Gogo is that it relates to Action, Memory, Choice and Procreative in the tetrahedron. In the diagram this corresponds to the 4 elements.

Why does Ego in the Haragi diagram correspond with a 4 based interval but the picture is 7 based? Why is Breath labelled 7 but has a 4 based picture? Might the 7 senses go together with Breath? The moment when a baby begins to take in sensory data from the world?
The Sentinel and Breath are present from birth. Ego is organised through life. Is Psyche developed through life or fully formed at birth?
Can the Sentinel be developed through life? The Sentinel and Breath generally operate mechanically but can become more conscious. In meditation we may learn to develop some control over the Sentinel in order for it to let us through. Both Breath and Sentinel are to do with the integrity of being. Being aware of the Sentinel is akin to being aware of Breath. As the sphere of I expands it encompasses Sentinel and Breath.
Will and I are to do with the creation of worlds.

The Mind Base is the precondition for perception. The Mind Door and the Sense Door are involved in the whole process of perceiving. 7 factors make up the Mind Base which translate from the Basque as Cause, Origin, Effect, Truth, Common Sense, Thought and Relationship. In Sareoso Mind is 7-fold.

The Gogo and Haragi diagrams are to do with the relationship between the Mind and Body. The unity and difference between mind and body perhaps. In this discussion we are approaching the whole thing from the point of view of mind so it is limited. To fully understand the diagrams we have to approach it from both.

A link to the Spheres of the Tetrahedron animation on the Moldatu website, describes the tetrahedron in terms of 3 layers, the endosphere, mesosphere and exosphere. The volume of the exosphere is equal to the volume of the central endosphere, plus the equivalent of 11 of the mesophseres. Since the tetrahedron itself is formed from 4 mesopsheres, this leaves the remainder of the exosphere as consisting of the equivalent of 7 mesospheres. The diagram includes a mathematical proof. (This description and proof is available on the Sareoso blog here.)

The amalgamation diagram has the octave going clockwise in Gogo diagram (i.e. between 1 (4) 3 2 7 (7) 1) and anticlockwise in Haragi diagram 1 6 (4) 12 21 (7) 1. The amalgamation is clockwise only. The diagram in the Worm, Dragon, Angel booklet for the 12^th meeting, which includes dependent origination and the mega octave, has both clockwise and anticlockwise directions. Is this relevant? And might the Adam/Gaia counter-directions relate to Gogo (Adam) and Haragi (Gaia)?

 

At a previous meeting we discussed:
4 = Materiality
7 = Impressions
Can you have a body without impressions to make it out of?
How can you receive impressions without a body?
Cosmoses make the Worlds but there can’t be Cosmoses without the Worlds.

When associations arise, feelings arise (relevant to dependent origination).
Feeling is a package of energy. When it is triggered, energy is released. The trigger can be an internal (new feeling) or external (new perception).
The impression produced is referred to sentinel and thereby to an organised level of self (Big I). New impressions don’t trigger conditioned associations. They need to be digested. Big I forms a new association after digestion. It is the job of Mind not body to do this.
Seek stimulation to be organised. Able to use more potential. To be able to become more of what you can (be?)

Taken from notes made at a SAREOSO meeting, October 7^th 2019

Heesht – The Way of the Peasant

From the Saroeso library

The Way of the Peasant

Starts with a dreamy child who is fascinated by the agility of ants and watches dreamily the movement of the grass as the wind blows or rain falls on water, making a mirror of a still pool, reflecting the unseen.  Heesht watches and follows with interest the autumn flocks of birds as they patrol in their thousands.  Heesht’s interest is not diverted by the singular movement but surveys the all as one.  It does not shift, it is not captured by one thing or another.  It is as though the spiders web of captivity of interest does not exist.  The butterfly of thought is not caught in the web of why, where or how.  Heesht follows the moment and rides the continuously changing reflections.  Heesht sees the rising and falling of clouds of insects in the air and is held by the web of movement’s interest. It follows the rising and falling of the smoke from the fire as it tells its tale and watches the snow and the sleet following the wind and the weather.  Heesht listens to the bells of the sheep ringing in the hills and sees the slow rising and falling of the hills and valleys and the swelling and shrinking of water in the tides on the seashore.  It sees the circling of the lights around the northern or southern star and the paths followed by the sun and the moon in their travels around the sky.

To recognise a budding shaman on its growing is the main task of a shaman.  Heesht shows itself at a very early age and can be spoilt at this age. The faculty must be nurtured at an age when it is assumed the child has few chances to act on its own. All grown ups can remember the unnerving gaze of a young child: it just looks at you, not judging, with the result that you judge yourself, and this ends with you liking yourself or otherwise. It triggers off your own mirror in effect, and you see yourself through its eyes. You must look for the child with this faculty and the ability to sustain its state for longer than 100 breaths.  Timing is essential in detection of the budding Heesht, then further tests: does the child appear to see entities not physically present?   One danger is mistaken kindness – one must not pity the child, but one must feel what it feels.  Does Heesht like clouds, insects, birds or animals?  Does it spend its time in high places watching them; is it fascinated by flowing water, thunder, lightning or the stars in the sky?  Is dusk or dawn interesting to it?  Mistaken attempts to attract its interest must be resisted – you remember what happened to you when you were enjoying a scene, and the other person said ‘Did you see…’ that bird? or that sight? or that beautiful experience?

Isiladia	Pure reflection	field		equanimity     mugagabe/ mugaezin	ignorance / wisdom	1
Adi aldatua	abstract attention	force	reverie		volitional formations	2
Aldamena	scattered attention	flow	hidden agenda	progenitive	consciousness	3
Liluradurako	attracted attention	form	field		mest* Nama-rupa	4
					Energy mind
Atzemana	Captured attention		force		mind base	5
Euskora	Held attention		flow		contact	6
Galdegai egina	focussing attention	field	form		feeling	7
Ezarria	Imposed attention	force		agenda decision	craving	8
				time
Izatea	identified attention	flow			clinging	9
Antzemena	recognised attention	form	field		becoming	10
Etiketa	labelled attention		force		birth	11
Gainezkoa	redundant attention		flow		death	12
Aztarna	remnant		form

Ikusia – sight
Soinua – sound
Dasta – Taste
Ukimena – touch
Suma – smell
Ahalegina – effort
orabidea – orientation

*mest = mass, energy, space, time

The basque words above are open to change –  we are not sure if we have the right ones – in fact the whole document is open to change and additions are welcomed.

Dependent Origination

From the Sareoso Library, related to diagram 29, Sortu Ernealdi.

The fool said “We come to the mirror of fame, wherein you may be or see everything you may have been or will be”.  We entered a long tunnel lit by a sort of blacklight, pale blue but flashing on and off at intervals.  The fool was humming loudly and singing snatches of tunes which I remembered from my pasts.

There were great peals of bells and huge-sounding organs, flocks of flutes, resounding choruses of bass and baritone, great sussurations of bats and depredations of locusts; the sounds of insects in their millions, moths, ants and wings of grasshoppers singing as they flew, and as they flew they were joined by the little cabbages, great wheels, and winged messengers, which all arose until they filled the very heavens and the grand chorus of sound filled the heaven above and below.

There appeared to be many choruses and orchestras, led by charismatic figures who were conducting this great festival of soundless sound which swelled into fullness and faded into lambent silence, rising and falling into the depth of depths, where the small mirrors came into being and passed away as they mirrored the conductors of the songs as they came into the light and passed away, and all the lights of heaven, earth and water were lit and this orchestra of light and sound mixed together and gave me whatever I wanted of sight and sound, taste, smell and texture, balance; all the libraries were there if I wished to look them up, and all the books of shape and name were laid out before me, but the fool took out a mirror and said “What do you see?”

“I see you,” I said.

“And who am I?”

and I saw that it was me looking from the other mirror, focussed by my image of myself, which I had chosen at the great orchestra, and I met the great orchestra and chorus because I saw myself as the charismatic leader of a small part of the soundless sound chorus.  I had wanted this power and ability and hung on to its attributes until I became one with them and then I knew myself and became me – and from this point I knew it.

I grew, and even then as I grew I became less able to do and I went, going down into silence at a higher pitch of soundless sound, and then into the great abyss where life came into existence, striking the balance between what has been and what may be. Wisdom exists in the moment after it has been – before, it is only possible. What is, is not this, not that – I am that I am, balanced by what I shall be, and el ha yam (being life itself; ‘god of the ocean’.)

The black hole opens at one end at death and comes out at the other at wisdom, which is the womb of the mother, which is zpe (zero point energy), wherein all energy  is available to formulate all worlds.

Ignorance is knowing what you do not know, and provides the impetus for further proliferation, for it seeks out what is not known and provides the impetus for consciousness, which is further division into name and form.

Having divided into names, one has to divide names; that is to say, one must then add labels.  Items must have identity – they must be recognisably different from one another.

They are aided in this by the faculties of mind, and further by the sense doors, which give further form and name to experience.

This is then given reality by contact with the object in view, and a feeling arises. At this stage, one desires more ordinary knowledge about the object and one desires the object until it has become one’s own.

When it becomes one’s own it then comes into being as a separate identity and acquires a life of its own, and this internal object begins its deterioration towards its death.

When it ceases to exist it then joins the kingdom of discarded shells and begins its descent into the abyss (the ‘black hole’), where it is separated into inner and outer being – the outer being is the focuses of power from which the cosmic egg develops after the entrance of cosmic truth into the egg of the mother.

El ha yam emerges as wisdom…

Then I entered a level land of dry grass, which was full of dried flowers that shivered with my passing, and Heesht saw before it an old lighthouse on the strand, which stood proud of and towered over the field it was built in, but this lighthouse did not seem to be of stone – it was built out of a material that shimmered in the light of day and seemed to be of ice. However it was not ice – it was transparent like ice but was not capable of being scratched.

Heesht came to the door of the lighthouse and entered. The stairs led upward in a spiral and they widened as they rose, so that each tread became an entry into §a larger space.

Heesht came to the first floor of the house, which contained a huge machine laid flat out in the space, not compact as a normal machine would be. Its parts were separated but were driven by a great finger which turned endlessly in its centre. The entire floor was turning and each part of the machine turned in sympathy with the great turning finger.

On the next floor the steps increased in width and depth – with each step upward the area extended, until it could no longer be contained by Heesht’s vision.

Heesht came to the third floor and it was in a cage of five sides – each side was in the likeness of a precious stone: one was diamond, one was a delicate topaz, then rock crystal, then emerald, followed by a shadowed citrine. These five sides rotated like wheels turning. They also turned about a centre where a sort of light was emitted – this light was a sort of black light that was shadowless; it rested on everything it touched and was not absorbed but automatically reflected perfectly.

On the upper floor of the house from where the lightless light came , Heesht came up to the top landing where the light would be, and found the centre held by a golden ball which was incandescent and surrounded by a sort of doughnut of substance which was as dark as obsidian but as solid as a gas and was studded all over with little sort of gyroscopes. These were of three types: what one would call a ‘top-bottom’, a ‘left-right screw’, and a ‘front-back’ gyroscope –

They moved over the surface of the doughnut and varied in size as they moved, and as they moved, each gave off a silver light as though each one was a sparkle of light given off by a spark struck from the hammer of a divine smith. This ball of emitted light was contained within a ball of glass and the ball concentrated the fire of the myriad thousand silver lights into what seemed to be a continuous beam which was reflected out through five windows: a citrine prism followed by an emerald prism, then a sapphire prism, an agate prism, and the final window was a giant diamond prism. They all rotated around the golden central ball, and around the centre of each window of the lighthouse.

The top floor of the lighthouse was filled with sound, with the highest pitch being emitted by the central golden bell, and this sound was halved by the next stage so that there were twelve notes being sounded by the whole of the top floor at the same time – a seeming chaos of sound, but within it chaos in harmony.

Transcendent Dependent Arising

This diagram relates to the discussion of the Seven inner and Outer senses. It shows the other ‘extra’ process described, detailing the 12 steps of liberation, the first of these being ‘suffering’ on the wheel.

 

 

Seven Outer Senses and Seven Inner Senses?

The seven outer senses enable us to look to outer space at creation.
The seven inner senses enable us to look to inner space at the creator.

We are familiar with the operation of some of the outward-facing senses more than others? Does our experience show that when we are looking inward there are a different set of inner senses and inner sense doors operating? The following is an attempt to explore the operation of both inner and outer senses.

The diagram below is a model of the senses – physical sense doors and the mind counterparts:

Propiception (or ‘proprioception’) is the sense that enables you to know where you are and is not the same as the sense of balance.

The above diagram can operate on very different scales – large scale, moment-to-moment – and shows creation depending upon two processes.

The clockwise process arises as a result of will to be at either the universal or the individual level. The anticlockwise process arises from the inherent tendency of passing away to be followed by arising (persistence/replication) and hence organisation. This can be considered as Mind.

The third element necessary to prevent a mechanical universe is randomicity. The interactions of the first two processes in themselves can generate unpredictable results at the smaller end of the scale. An example would be genetic mutation. Also the play between each individually created universe/ person and every other ‘oneness’ produces randomicity.

Weakening the links in the chain of causation and maximising oneness/ uniqueness i.e. turning away from will and ignorance to unity increases randomicity.This is what is more mundanely thought of as decreasing identification. Why is the mind 7-based?

We may consider the All as the totality of impressions and the One – the universe /individual as the processor of them.

External impressions are derived in a process able form from the body. An individual body itself is selective according to its type and the maturity of its sense organs. They are processed by mindbase. The interaction of mind and body sets up an intermediary processor me /ego which increase selectivity.

Internal impressions are derived from the initial clockwise process which is used to set up the means of comparison (mindbase). Once formed, it is both maintained by and is selective (on the basis of its own structure) towards new impressions it receives.

We can see that impressions, both external and internal, are used to construct processors which in turn modify and select future impressions. Mindbase and ego feedback to body and modify it (see the way your face reflects your experience). Mind enables the experience of time/space and deeper to be organised.

Looking either outwards to the creation (material elements) or inwards to the creator (primordial elements) increases the range of impressions received which alter the established processors. Body and psyche can be changed through the agency of the ego and mindbase processors i.e. they in turn become a source of impressions.

 

Why observe? Observation opens up input from the outer world.

Why meditate? Meditation opens up the mind door.
Both provide food for growth and change.

 

The origin of form is 7-fold: ●  ●  ●   ●●  ●●  ●●   ●●●
Why is mind 7-based?