Turning the Dharma Wheel is a symbol of the Buddha teaching the Dharma. All the different teachings of the Dharma can be categorized into four categories. These are the ‘Four Turnings’.
Each of these groupings, or turning of the Dharma Wheel, is briefly introduced here. For more information, check the advanced article.
Usually, in the Sutra tradition, there are only Three Turnings. This is the more common understanding.
Take note that ‘Turning the Dharma Wheel’ is different from a “Buddhist Vehicle”. A ‘turning’ is a specific group of the Buddha’s teachings. A ‘vehicle’ is a path, with a beginning and destination. (For the Three Vehicles of Buddhism, click here.)
First Turning of the Dharma Wheel
(under the Lesser Vehicle of the Hearer-listeners and Pratyekabuddhas)
The Buddha taught about impermanence, impurity, suffering, ugliness, selflessness, to make the students stop clinging to Samsara. To develop renunciation. He taught in the Deer Park in Varanasi, India, to the first five monks.
Most Common Topics: Four Noble Truths, Samsara, Karma, Emotional Afflictions
Second Turning of the Dharma Wheel
(under the Greater Vehicle of the Bodhisattvas)
To bring about partial ending to conceptual elaborations, the Buddha then taught about buddha-nature, through concepts, such as emptiness, signlessness and aspirationlessness of relative things.
He taught at Vulture’s Peak Mountain, Rajgir, India, to 5,000 arhats, such as Sariputra and Maudgalyayana, the 500 nuns including the first nun, Prajapati, the host of laymen and laywomen including Anathapindada and the laywoman Visakha, a multitude of gods, nagas, and gandharvas, and a multitude of bodhisattvas, including Bhadrapala, Ratnasambhava, and Jaladatta.
Most Common Topics: Transcendental Perfection of Wisdom, Stages and Paths
Third Turning of the Dharma Wheel:
(under Greater Vehicle of the Bodhisattvas)
To bring order to all of his teachings, the Buddha taught about buddha-nature, through complete absence of concepts. Mainly through the purity of the three spheres, beyond acceptance and rejection, being and non-being. He also arranged his teachings according to the imputed (kun tak), dependent (shen wang) and absolute (yong drub).
This is the final group under the three common turnings. He taught at Vaisali and other places, India, to uncountable monks, nuns, gods, nagas and bodhisattvas.
Most Common Topics: Buddha-bodies, Purelands, Provisional and Definitive Meanings
Fourth Turning of the Dharma Wheel
(under the Secret Vehicle of the Awareness Holders)
In the form of Vajradhara, the Buddha taught the Secret Mantra. Called Tantra or Vajrayana. Secret Mantra is about indestructible reality. Indestructible reality is supreme indivisibility and inseparability. It is called ‘resultant vehicle’ because it incorporates the result – Buddhahood – into the cause – the Buddhist practices. Buddha Shakyamuni taught Secret Mantra via different Buddha forms and at hidden places.
According to the Buddha, Secret Mantra appears extremely rarely in the human world. The three other turnings are more common. That is why, in all Sutras, there are only “three turnings of the Dharma Wheel” mentioned.
Secret Mantra is only effective to those who have very strong foundation in the three other turnings.
Turning the Dharma Wheel is a classic imagery. Buddha himself used this image in the Sutra of the Turning of the Dharma Wheel.