I first read this book when a student of Chinese religion several decades ago, but spotted it again last week while searching for another book on the Buddhist concept of hell. I don't know why I took it down and began to leaf through it, then sat down to read it again over the past few days, but am so glad I did.
First of all, despite its title The Wheel of Life and cover photo, the work has little to do with the Buddhist concept of hell, but rather with life itself--in this case, the life of its author and his on-again/off-again search for the eternal Truth, a path that winds through many different schools and practices of Buddhism, and lingers for a while in Zen, before staying its course in Vajrayana Buddhism.
This wonderfully honest and charming autobiography takes us back to the days before many of the famous temples in China were destroyed (first by the Japanese, then the Communists, then the Red Guards), back when John could wear a long grey Chinese gown in the streets of Beijing without seeming eccentric, or hire a mule cart to carry him up to the heights of Mt. Tai Shan. It's a lovely tale of a young man who had Chuangzi's butterfly dream when he was 5 years old, and convinced a maiden aunt to buy a small Buddha for him when 9, and who left for China to live his dream while still at University. He converted to Buddhism as an adolescent and spent the rest of his life--sometimes more ardently and earnestly than others--trying to follow its path, but he is honest throughout of his successes and failures in this area. It's also a tale of shamans and travel experiences, meetings with great teachers and Lamas and even the Dalai Lama himself. As one shares with the author his disappointments and insights, one can only hope that in the last decade of his life he was more content with his progress than he confesses in the book's final chapter.
Reading it, one feels as though one is sitting in John's study, sharing a glass of sherry and listening to his life story. I never wanted the visit to end. Yes it's outdated, but that gave me the opportunity to step back into time and engage with the past that was China and as a Metropolitan curator [Marla Prather] once said, "Anytime you can step out of time [with an art work] is a gift from that artist". Readers who enjoy this book will also enjoy reading The Years that were Fat by George Kates and will certainly want to read others works by Blofeld himself. ( )

A memoir mainly of life in China in the 1930s, of the author's blossoming interest in Buddhism. It's not so much about Buddhism but about the author's experiences as he meets various teachers in his travels - Hong Kong, Beijing, Wu Taishan, and also Sikkim. Nothing really profound here, but an intelligent and sincere exploration of Buddhist practice - mostly Zen and Vajrayana. Blofeld gives nice descriptions of the worldly settings - e.g. the advancing Japanese invasion and the corruption of the Nationalist government in the 1930s.

The second edition, 1972, augments the first edition of 1955 with a few final chapters. Trips up into Mongolia and and then to Dharamsala for an audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama are the main adventures. ( )

John Blofeld had the good fortune to see parts of China before WW II and to record his impressions of a life now completely vanished. He travelled to many Buddhist holy places and recorded his conversations with the Dalai Lama and other luminaries. This book is of great value as an unvarnished record of his attempt to lead his life according to Buddhist principles while remaining involved in the world. It is described by Lama Govinda as "a delightful and highly rewarding book". ( )

Here are some notes, moslty quoted sections, I made while reading this excellent work:

Samsara (the universe as perceived by our senses, a state inherently unsatisfactory) as the plaything of delusion.

In the center of the wheel are three creatures: a cock signifying craving and greed, a snake signifying wrath and passion, a pig signifying ignorance and delusion. Craving, wrath and ignorance are the three fires of evil which make sentient beings the victims of Avidhya- primordial delusion.

Around them is a narrow circle half of which is filled with happy-looking but rather worldly people going up, and half with naked wretches falling down. As a result of relative victories or defeats in their contests with the ego, sentient beings rise or fall within Samsara's round, each rise being succeeded by a fall if evil karma is acquired in the new existence; and each fall being succeeded by a rise when the evil karma is worked off or if the being acquires merit. All these beings endlessly revolve among the six states.

Then come six segments of the circle representingthe six states of existence seperately (gods, asuras, humans, animals, hungry ghosts and denizens of hell) or five segments with the first two orders in the upper and lower parts of the same one. Conditions in each state of existence are depicted graphically.

The rim is divided into twelve sections each with a picture signifying one of the links in the twelvefold chain of causality whereby beings are ensnared life after life. The twelve links in the chain of casusation are illustrated in slightly diffferent ways by different artists, but generally they are as follows:

1. A blind man- primodial ignorance

2. a potter- fashioning: ignorance giving rise to elemental impulses

3. a monkey playing with a peach- tasting good and evil: impulses giving rise to consciousness

4.two men in a boat- personality: consciousness giving rise to name and form

5. Six empty houses- six senses (including mind): personality giving rise to sense perception

6. Love-making - Contact: the senses giving rise to desire for contact with their objects

7. Blinded by arrows in both eyes- feelings of pleasure and pain: contact giving rise to blind feeling

8. Drinking- Thirst: feeling giving rise to thirst for more

9. A monkey snatching fruit- Appropriation: thirst giving rise to grasping.

10. A pregnant woman- Becoming: grasping giving rise to continuity of existence

11. Childbirth- Birth: birth giving rise to rebirth

12. A corpse- Decay: rebirth giving rise to renewed death and further ronds of birth and death for ever and ever.

The whole wheel is in the grasp of a huge and hideous demon who resembles Yama the Lord of Death and wears upon his headdress five skulls. Yama, Lord of Death, represents Avidhya with the entire universe in its clutch. Merely rising from one state to another, even though it be to the heavenly bliss of the gods (devas), brings no release from delusion's grasp; sooner or later the gods will tumble back into the more unsatisfactory states- no permanent gain accrues from utilizing merit to procure a pleasant rebirth. The five skulls in Yama's headdress represents the five senses, the five illusory perceptions, the five kinds of wrongdoing, the five aggregates of being- the very opposites of all that is personified by the five Jinas at the core of the mandala.

Near the top of the picture stands the Buddha pointing not at the Wheel of Life, but at another more simple and very beautiful wheel with eight spokes- "Asoka's wheel" which for more than two thousand years has been a symbol of the Dharma, i.e. the Doctrine of the Budha, and in another sense, Univeral law. The Buddha points to a proper understanding fo the Doctrine and conformance with Universal Law as the only way to Libreation. Sentient beings have a choice between aeons of suffering and Nirvana's bliss, the fruit of Enlightenment.

Among the many lessons to be learnt from contemplating this symbol is the futility of piling up good works without making a genuine spiritual advance. Good works at best qualitfy people for transient joys in the highest of the six states of existence, where they are still subject to duhkha even if it is in the form of general dissatisfaction rather than acute suffering. Heaven offers no permanent way out of duhkha in its severest forms. Moral action is admirable in itself; it benefits both the doer and the recipient, but it does not lead to the conquest of delusion. If the benefits of a virtuous life are to be lasting, there must be a revolution of the consciousness that goes far beyond morality and piety.

Jina- Conquerer, a title given to the five main manifestations of the Buddha-wisdom, but also used collectively for all Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, etc.

pretas - hungry ghosts?

Men do fashion their own heavens and hells. Only the hells are apt to prove just hells, while the heavens - turn out to be hells, too.

And who can say that the mosquito sucks less pleasure from a man's veins than a govenors sucks from the province entrusted to his care?

Experience everything you can, but taking care not to do this in a crude or animal way, a stupid mood of self-indulgence. Keep always in your mind the Buddha-truth that life and suffering are indivisible. Everything is transient and subject to change, to growth, to sickness or decay, to death or dissolution. Enjoy your pleasures to the full, taking care to look beyond them.... Note which of its (life's) beauties reflect the eternally real and which are mere disguises for the decay and corruption beneath.

... he must learn _reasonable_ self-control, not based upun forceful abstention but upon wise renunciation following recognition of the hollowness of the objects of his desires...

No parting and no meeting ever really take place. When we rejoice at a meeting or grieve at a parting, we are allowing false understanding to take the place of truth. Wherever you go, in this life and in lives to come, I shall be with you. The Light which shines deep, deep within your own heart is my Light, the Light of all. And whea at last we have gained tue object of our great search, even apparent differences and divisions will melt away. You and I will know ourselves for the One that we have never ceased to be. ( )