realms are too concerned with their pains and survival to think
about spiritual practice or enlightenment. Hell beings only await
the exhaustion of their karma to end their indescribable suffer-
ings while the Ghosts or Pretas are totally distorted by the deep
frustrations to satisfy their unsatisfied passions. Animals, while
suffering less, are born stupid due to the result of their willful
ignorance and are therefore unable to derive any benefit from
Dharma. ey live only by instinct and must face a daily reality
of searching for food or mate, and killing or be killed.One’s life thus move in endless cycles within these Six Realms
of Gods, Asuras, Human Beings, Animals, Hungry Ghosts and
Hell Beings so long as Ignorance is not uprooted and Enlighten-
ment gained.In the centre of the Wheel is seen the ree Animals which rep-
resent the ree Poisons or Root Causes of an unenlightened ex-
istence. e Rooster represents passionate desire and attachment,
the Green Snake represents hatred, emity and aversion, and the
Boar represents the darkness of ignorance and ego-delusion, the
blind urge that drives beings round and round in the unend-
ing circle of births and deaths. ey are depicted as biting each
other’s tails, linking in such a way that they too form a circle be-
cause Greed, Anger and Delusion condition each other and are
inseparably connected. We must learn to recognise these poisons
as the forces that control our quality of life and take proper steps
to quell and remove them. How we perform in each life is de-
pendent on these root causes, the result of which is quite clearly
depicted by the figures of the outer rim of this hub — Virtuous