Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this two-minute overview, Amy Miller introduces the three main turnings of the Wheel of Dharma taught by the Buddha. She begins with the second turning, given at Vulture’s Peak near Bodhgaya, where the Buddha taught the Perfection of Wisdom and presented emptiness as summarised in the Heart Sūtra — the view that phenomena lack inherent, independent concrete existence. She contrasts this with the first turning, which presented the Hīnayāna view that phenomena do exist from partless particles. The Buddha then gave the third turning at Vaishali to clarify questions arising from the second, teaching Buddha-nature and the mind-only school, which asserts that some things exist truly and others do not. Miller emphasises that all three turnings were teachings tailored to specific audiences and their particular needs.
File metadata (for organising)
File: amy-miller-nutshell-no-details-1-20-the-turnings-of-the-wheel-of-dharma-copy
Teacher: Amy Miller
Collection: Nutshell no details (Amy Miller)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~327
This is explained a bit in the first turning. The second turning of the wheel of Dharma, the second main group of teachings the Buddha gave, was at Rajgriha, also called Rajgir, India, at Vulture’s Peak. This is in eastern India, a place that is located a couple of hours’ drive from Bodh Gaya in Bihar state. At this place, the Buddha taught the perfection of wisdom, the Prajñāpāramitā, and synthesized in a shorter version as the Heart Sūtra, the definitive presentation of emptiness. And so from this arose some vast teachings of the Mahāyāna school, the middle way schools, teaching that phenomena do not exist inherently from their own side as concrete independent entities.
So the first turning dealt with that there are phenomena that exist from a partless particle and that that does truly exist, which is the basis of the Hīnayāna schools. The second turning said, no, it’s different. They do not contradict each other, these teachings. They just existed because there were various disciples. So the Buddha went on to give the third turning of the wheel at Vaishali, also in that same general area of India.
And there were many questions after the second turning. So in order to clarify these, the Buddha taught Uttaratantra on Buddha nature. And the Chitamatran view, the mind only school, arose from this, saying that some things exist truly and some don’t. They were all these turnings addressed for specific audiences in order to benefit their minds in the best way.