Turning the Wheel of Dharma Part 1: Confusion

We live within a fascinating slice of time and space.  Thousands of years of human history precede this moment that finds itself as the culmination of human evolution.  Part and parcel to this miraculous development is the completely mysterious phenomenon that information is accessible at the blink of an eye.  The teachings that have become tempered and sharpened in the fires of time and tradition are being introduced at rapid speed to the minds and hearts of human beings stemming from all corners of this planet.  While this is, of course, unbelievably beneficial to those that would take such teachings to heart and learn from them, something is becoming lost in translation.  In our hurry for information we are bypassing the necessity for care that is so necessary to fully understand the traditions within which we find ourselves being introduced to and transformed by in an integral way--care that allows us to be well-informed and discriminating.  

Forty years ago, the dawning of the sun of Tibetan Buddhism began to shine its rays upon those in the west.  The era of Chogyam Trungpa, Lama Yeshe, and other Tibetan luminaries had begun as western students, thirsty from the arid spiritual climate of their Abrahamic traditions, began to finally find the nourishment they were seeking so ardently for.  In the years leading up to this present moment, these teachers have come and gone, reincarnated through their tulku traditions, and their Western students have taken up the banners of the Dharma and began to transmit the teachings.

Contrary to what may be popular belief, the three turnings system is not a general Buddhist hermeneutic.  The truth of the matter is that if you went to have the audience of forest renunciant practitioners from the Therevadin tradition in Thailand and asked them about the possibility of the fourth turning blossoming in the West, they would more than likely look at you quizzically wondering what you could be talking about.  Indeed, the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma is a Tibetan Buddhist tradition whose first mention comes from a text called the Sandhinirmocana-sūtra.

Probably composed in the 4th century BCE, the Sandhinirmocana-sūtra is a dialogue between the Buddha and various attendant bodhisattvas whose main thrust for the text is introducing the third turning teachings on the non-dual nature of ultimate reality and getting clear on that which came before.  Described as the definitive teachings, the third turning is seen as the fruition of the skillful means that were preceeded by the indicative teachings of the first turning (realization of nirvāna/empty of self) and the second turning (realizations of bodhicitta and śūnyatā/empty of self and other).  [For a more detailed treatment of the three turnings, see The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche's article, "What the Buddha Taught" here.]

The teachings within theSandhinirmocana-sūtra are particularly relevant in this context because they describe the non-dual experience of luminous emptiness (śūnyatā).  As John Powers points out in his introduction to the translation of the sūtra, the first four chapters expound upon the ultimate and how a practitioner of the Dharma should seek to understand it.  Woven throughout these four chapters are pearls of expression that, strung together, create a beautiful understanding of the nature of ultimate reality.  For instance, it is “inexpressible,” (11) “obscured by ignorance,”(21) “devoid of conventions,”(27) “devoid of all dispute,”(29) “profound and subtle, having a character completely transcending sameness and difference,”(35) and “of a character that is all of one taste”(59).  Furthermore, the sūtra creates a beautiful map that shows how each turning is a particularly profound attainment within the practitioner's consciousness--one that realizes the emptiness of self, the emptiness of other along with the arising of bodhicitta, and finally the non-dual experience of form and formlessness, emptiness and bliss.  [It could be argued, however, that the realization of a Theravadin practitioner (Hinayāna) embraces the profound heights of the third turning realization too.  For instance, see the excellent biography of Phra Acharn Mun here.]

Seeing the development of the three turnings and what each of them means within the context of the various systems from which they arose helps to get a sense of the full weight of the Dharma that is being brought up in western buddhist sanghas.  Instead of blindly accepting teachings that are purporting to be the further evolution of buddhist Dharma, an intelligent and well-informed practitioner can use the sword of discrimination (prajñā) to cut through the tendency of of what might be spiritual bypassing and see instead the beauty of the myriad gateways that lay in prostration in front of the practitioner.

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