The Wheel of Fortune arcana presents us with the pathos of Fate and the potential for liberation. Humans feel caught in closed-loop patterns; we fluctuate between passivity and action, domesticity and wildness, hot and cold, heaven and hell, and success and failure. But what is beyond the ups and downs, the polarities of life, fortune and misfortune? Can we escape the seemingly closed-loop system of samsara, what Jack Kerouac called ‘the meat wheel’?
Valentine Tomberg calls The Wheel of Fortune the arcana of Cosmic Drama—the drama of human pathos. The drama shows how we are constantly revolving around three states of being that the Hindus called tamas (inertia), symbolised by the dog, rajas (the passions), symbolised by the snake, and sattva (reconciliation), symbolised by the sphinx. Up and down, and around and around the meat wheel, we go!
The similarities of this arcana to the wheel of samsara in the Buddhist tradition are uncanny. The Buddhist wheel of samsara also contains three animals and different beings outside the wheel. The central animals in the Buddhist system are the snake, symbolising passion; the cock, symbolising aggression; and the pig, symbolising ignorance. In both systems, the realms of cyclical entrapment appear animated by a deadly triad of passion, aggression, and ignorance. And outside the wheel, other creatures have transcended the whole cyclical game.
So can we transcend the wheel? The answer is: yes and no. Let’s start with no. The path of No is what the Buddhist call sutra-yana, or the vehicle of renunciation. Renunciation is at the root of all religious systems, and spiritual life begins with the ability to say no to the deluding power of passion, aggression and ignorance. Sutra focuses on freedom from karma and the wheel of cyclical existence. The Sutric person tries to leave the cycle altogether, abandoning worldly matters and passions.
This is understandable when we meditate on “the terror of our situation”, in the words of George Gurdjieff, who called the ordinary state of the human being ‘machine man’. Gurdjieff tells us, “Man is immersed in dreams... He lives in sleep… He is a machine. He cannot stop the flow of his thoughts; he cannot control his imagination, emotions, attention... He does not see the real world. The real world is hidden from him by the wall of imagination.” The way out of the machine or wheel is through real meditation-in-action, or what Gurdjieff called ‘self-remembrance’. This is the practice of learning to see the transparent and illusory nature of the wheel and to act with intention instead of inadvertence.
In the Buddhist wheel of samsara, there is a Buddha in each of the six realms. These are, respectively, the realm of hell beings, animals, hungry ghosts, humans, jealous titans, and Gods. They are mythopoetic descriptions of the various vicissitudes of our lives. The good news in this dark picture is that liberation exists within all realms, and there is always a way out of suffering, even in hell. In the Tarot, the higher beings outside the wheel (the man and the eagle) and the lower beings (the lion and the ox) have wings, an obvious symbol of transcendence. The beings outside the wheel are the ones who have gone beyond fatalism altogether.
When we arrive at the tantric tradition, there is a quantum shift in perspective. The radical tantric statement is that samsara is nirvana, which means instead of trying to escape the wheel of our fate, we embrace it with a kind of ‘Amor fati’ or love of fate. Illumination does not occur outside the sensual realm—the senses are vehicles of enlightenment. The three terrible oaths of the Tantric deity Dorje Tröllö describe the radical acceptance of whatever appears: Whatever happens, may it happen! Whichever way it goes, may it go that way! There is no purpose! Dorje Tröllö does not search for transformation outside the wheel; he is not otherworldly. In Tantra, the symptom or the illness is also the cure. Therefore, we should go deeper into the matter rather than avoiding the eternal return of the same—to quote Nietzsche again.
The wheel of fortune asks: should we get out of a dysfunctional situation—the reasonable sutric approach? Or should we practice Amor fati, as Nietzsche suggested—the outrageous tantric posture? Of course, it depends. Sometimes we need to break out of the spinning wheel of the Matrix; at other times, we must change the system from within. In the end, the inside and outside of the wheel constitute a singularity—and with every turning, something is lost, and something is gained. The good news is: there is a crack in the wheel.
This article is part of a consideration of our study group on symbolism and Psychomagic. If you want to become a member and join one of our study groups, please write to me at andrewpgsweeny@gmail.com or check out the events calendar below for more details.