The Bhavachakra

The word Bhava means "Becoming" and the word Chakra means "Wheel", so the Bhavachakra means "The Wheel of Becoming". In the West it is usually called the Wheel of Life. It is the world's first recorded visual aid. It was used to teach people about the Buddha's ideas. It was a diagram that was used to help them memorise and get the ideas clear, especially as most of the people around at the time could not read or write. The diagram is said to date back to the time of the Buddha himself.

For Buddhists, this picture is a symbolic map of your mind. It tries to show you the sorts of processes, feelings and thoughts, which go through your mind. It is a map of the mental world that each one of us lives in. Buddhists call this world Samsara, the "conditioned mind" or "conditioned existence".

When you look at the picture, you see four wheels. All of these are thought to be spinning around. Nowadays it might be possible, with computers and animation, to have an image of the Bhavachakra with the wheels spinning, but in ancient times you had to imagine each of them as spinning. The four wheels are held up to your gaze, up by Yama (V), who is the Demon of Impermanence, and you are looking into them as if you are looking into a mirror!

Impermanence

The word "Change" is a more simple word for impermanence. Buddhism says that all things are constantly changing. It says that nothing in the universe ever stays the same. This is the same for us, we are constantly changing, we are not permanent. Try to think of one THING that exists that does not change? The Buddhist claims that it is impossible to answer this question.

So why is Impermanence, or the idea of everything changing, shown as a scary monster? Because change is scary, it can threaten, us, we feel insecure, uneasy. Try to think back to your first day at school. How did it make you feel, did you feel nervous, or perhaps a little scared?

We often feel this way when we go to somewhere new, or meet a new group of people, or go into a situation that we have not been in before. It's scary; we are meeting Yama, the Monster of Impermanence!

Buddhism has a word for the idea that everything is Impermanent or constantly changing; they call it Anitya.