The Three Turnings Of The Wheel of Dharma
Category: Buddhist Path | Recent Meditation Posts
A Key to The Buddha’s Three Main Cycles of Teachings
During the half century between his awakening and his death, the Buddha tirelessly guided students inspired by his knowledge, compassion, and life example. His teachings are often referred to as the three turnings of the wheel of the Dharma: three cycles of discourses that map out the practitioner’s journey from the confines of misunderstanding and pain to the freedom of open-hearted wisdom.
The first turning of the wheel of the Dharma refers to the Buddha’s earliest and best-known discourses. Among these we find the very first teaching he gave to his first five disciples in Deer Park near Varanasi, India, which became known as the Discourse on Turning of the Wheel of the Dharma. This sutra presents the Buddha’s teaching on the Four Noble Truths: suffering, its causes, its cessation, and the path that leads through the cessation of suffering to awakening. The first turning serves as the basis for all forms of Buddhism.
The second turning refers to the discourses that the Buddha is said to have given on Vulture Peak, a mountain in Bihar, India, which is the same region where he attained enlightenment. This is where he gave the teachings on emptiness that would serve as the foundation for the path of the bodhisattva and all forms of Mahayana Buddhism.
The teachings that comprise the third turning are said to have been given in several places over a number of years. Here, we learn about Buddha nature: the luminous, pristine quality of mind that is the mind’s true nature, and the seed of awakening that is present in all beings. The third turning also belongs to Mahayana Buddhism.
At their core, these teachings are not contradictory. They demonstrate the skillful means the Buddha used to guide students of varying life experiences and capacities. Scholars generally agree that while the teaching on the Four Noble Truths was recorded by the Buddha’s disciples relatively soon after his death, the discourses that present the second and third turnings were revealed later. Let’s delve further into these three turnings to try to get a sense of what connects and differentiates them.
The first turning: nothing arises without a cause
The core teachings relating to the first turning of the wheel of the Dharma form the basis of all subsequent teachings. Here we are introduced to the four noble truths, the noble eightfold path (i.e. the fourth noble truth—the path to cessation—unpacked), interdependent origination, various meditation practices, and the importance of ethical behavior informed by an understanding of karma, the law of cause and effect. Our present actions prepare the ground for future experiences. Positive actions lead to positive outcomes; negative actions lead to negative outcomes. We learn that to achieve the unconditional happiness and freedom that is nirvana, we should:
Commit no wrongdoings, cultivate what is good and wholesome, tame and train the mind completely; this is the teaching of the Buddhas.
~ Dhammapada chapter 14 verse 183
In these teachings, the Buddha stresses that attachment and desire based on the erroneous belief in a “self” set the wheel of samsara in motion and keep it going. There is a strong focus on ethical conduct and avoiding harming oneself and others—monks and nuns of all Buddhist traditions follow the precepts laid out in the teachings of the first turning—as well as on cultivating meditative stability.
Here the Buddha introduces the notion that the very “self” that serves as the basis for the clinging, emotions, and negative actions that keep us stuck in our habits and karma is nothing but a construct. It has no inherent existence and thus can be broken down into the components he calls the five aggregates. Because the self is the sum of many impermanent parts, it cannot be said to exist in and of itself in any enduring way. The contemplations and practices connected to the first turning are geared toward helping the practitioner achieve a direct experience of the selflessness of the individual, thereby short-circuiting the detrimental reactions connected to ego-clinging.
The second turning: none of what we just talked about is real
The second cycle, based on the Perfection of Wisdom, or Prajnaparamita, discourses pronounced by the Buddha and his disciples on Vulture Peak, take selflessness a step further. Not only is there no solid, enduring self behind our experiences, but the experiences themselves are entirely subjective, as are their objects. This subjectivity translates as emptiness: reality as we perceive it simply does not exist as such. Unaware of this, the confused mind continues to function within a self/other dichotomy.
The Buddhist master Nagarjuna (1st century C.E.), having perfectly realized the teachings on emptiness, presented the Perfection of Wisdom sutras within a philosophical framework that would become known as the Middle Way school, or Madhyamika. These teachings are not at odds with the first turning. Rather, they offer another lens or perspective from which to view the Four Noble Truths.
We continue to practice mindfulness and ethics as our practice progressively leads us to the realization that self, phenomena, and the perception of them are all empty. Through this foray into what is sometimes referred to as two-fold selflessness—the individual self as well as the identity of objects—our full potential for compassion begins to dawn. Because our meditation practice has led us to liberating experiences of emptiness/selflessness, we see clearly that clinging to self in all its myriad forms creates suffering, and we naturally develop compassion towards those who remain stuck in clinging and negativity.
Mahayana practices are designed to help us develop compassion and wisdom—the realization of emptiness. These qualities of the bodhisattva are also called relative and ultimate bodhicitta, the two facets of awakening mind. Relative bodhicitta, compassion, is the blossoming of the open heart. Ultimate, or absolute, bodhicitta, is wisdom: the ability to recognize emptiness as the basis for everything that manifests.
The third turning: emptiness isn’t empty
While the first and second turnings are concerned with illuminating the emptiness of self (the perceiver) and objects (the thing seen), the third turning clarifies that emptiness is not simply a negation. Through the realization of emptiness, the inherently enlightened qualities of mind can manifest. For the Buddha as for Mahayana practitioners, this does not conflict with the teachings of the first or second turning; it is considered to be an elaboration.
The teachings belonging to this cycle gave rise to the Mind-Only School of Mahayana Buddhism, Cittamatra or Yogacara in Sanskrit. Here, once again, we recognize that things don’t exist the way we think they do. In fact, nothing exists independent of the mind that perceives it. Mind both creates and interprets the world; everything we experience is through the mind.
If we think deeply about this, or contemplate it in meditation, we recognize that every single one of our sense perceptions, as well as thoughts, views, mental afflictions, and insights, is experienced through the domain of mind. This teaching emphasizes the fact that everything we perceive passes through the filter of our mental and emotional state of being. We don’t actually know what is “out there;” we only know what is experienced by our minds. And since, ordinarily, our minds are clouded by the subjective experience of self and other, we are lost in a world of duality. This is the world of karma, created by mind, with its endemic suffering and constant change.
Our work lies in training the mind to see through the clouds of subjective habits. Transform the mind and everything the mind perceives changes too. This understanding is the basis of the transformative practices of Vajrayana Buddhism, whereby realization manifests very quickly by purification of the view.
In this third turning, the Buddha emphasized the qualities of enlightenment, known as Buddha nature, rather than the emptiness of the veils covering it. Buddha nature means that mind, however and wherever it manifests, is inherently pure and always has been. Because of this, sentient beings not only have the potential for Buddhahood, they already possess its qualities.
Provisional versus definitive meaning
The views presented in the three cycles of the Buddha’s teachings give a different spin on such fundamental notions as reality, perception, personhood, and emptiness. How can we make sense of these subtleties? How do they impact our practice? Does it matter which one we align ourselves with?
Mahayana scholars often use a system to categorize the three turnings as those which are provisional and those which are definitive. Provisional teachings have a limited scope. They are used to inspire and guide practitioners as they journey along the path toward deeper realization. The teachings belonging to the first cycle, where the emphasis is on karma and how things function on a relative level, are considered “provisional” because they don’t delve into the empty nature of what we consider reality. They acknowledge where we are in our understanding of the path and provide a bridge to higher teachings.
A sense of the definitive teachings, i.e. those belonging to the second and third turnings, is important for beginning practitioners as well. They point us in the right direction, while acknowledging that right here, right now, our focus is on the provisional philosophies and practices that give us the solid foundation we’ll need to make further progress. However, definitive teachings that are presented too early can be discouraging and even lead to the creation of negative karma. How so? Because it’s easy to misunderstand emptiness as meaning that actions have no consequences and therefore we can do whatever we please. This is called the “extreme of nihilism” or negation. On the other end of the spectrum, we may take the teachings on the law of karma, cause and effect, as well as those on Buddha nature, to mean that certain things really do exist. This is called the “extreme of eternalism” or existence.
All Mahayana scholars consider the 1st turning provisional, but there are differing points of view about which subsequent turning is definitive. For some schools the 2nd turning, with its focus on emptiness, is definitive, while for others it is the 3rd turning and its focus on Buddha nature. One way of resolving this apparent contradiction is to accept both the 2nd and 3rd as definitive, that is, as two ways of looking at the same thing. After all, we are searching for ultimate truth and ultimate truth can’t be explained through concepts. Phenomena are both empty of misconceptions and full of enlightened qualities at the same time. Expressed another way, the correct view of reality requires refraining from straying into the extremes of nihilism or eternalism.
The 3 turnings of the wheel of Dharma provide paths that all can follow according to their capacities and dispositions. Many Mahayana practice paths present the teachings progressively. We might begin by focusing on the selfless nature of the individual, then expand to the selflessness or emptiness of phenomena. Finally once the gross and subtle veils that foster our misunderstanding of the nature of reality and experience have been removed (or at least reduced), we can work with and begin to recognize mind’s true nature. This training leads to a direct experience of Buddha nature, the mind of awakening.
