Setting the Wheel in Motion

There is a particular gravity to a prayer wheel when it is sitting still.

It stands complete, still, motionless. And yet, as you stand before it, its presence does not feel neutral. It feels receptive. As though it's already in relationship with you.

Almost without intention, your hand reaches out. You turn the wheel.

This interaction is not driven by duty. No one tells you to turn the wheel. It arises from a recognition. Something in you understands that what is present is meant to be set in motion.

This is where practice begins, not with a goal or idea, but with a natural response.

In Buddhism, prayer takes many forms. There are prayers of confession and offering, of devotion and request. There are prayers that express gratitude, remorse, or aspiration. Among these, aspiration prayers hold a particular value.

An aspiration prayer does not describe what has already been realized. It gives voice to what is seen and sensed, even when it cannot yet be lived fully. It names a north star, a direction that aligns our heart and mind with what matters most.

Prayer, in this sense, is not about asking for something. It is about orienting our heart and mind to what we know to be true.

This is why turning a prayer wheel is itself a form of prayer. The action of our body mirrors an inner alignment. Even without fully understanding why or how, something true is set in motion. You turn the wheel, and in doing so, the wheel turns you.

It is important to understand what the prayer wheel represents in this metaphor.

A still prayer wheel represents potential, complete and perfect just as it is. Everything it holds is already present. What is absent is lived expression. In this way, the prayer wheel mirrors our own condition. Buddhanature, or our Buddha heart, is not something we acquire or accomplish through effort. It is already whole, already present, even when it remains silent and hidden from view. Our confusion does not harm it. Our hesitation does not cause it to lose its power.

And yet, when this potential is recognized, even faintly, its presence begins to feel heavy. We sense the gravity of it in us. The weight of what has not yet been set in motion calls to us.

This feeling may be misunderstood. That calling isn't meant to be interpreted as guilt. You haven't failed at anything. It is a recognition. A felt sense of our true nature, waiting to be recognized and set in motion.

The first push is often the hardest. The large prayer wheels in India, Nepal, and Tibet are heavy. They resist. You have to lean your body into them. Habits resist in the same way. Doubt resists. Old patterns resist. But once the wheel begins to turn, momentum appears on your side. What felt immovable becomes workable. What seemed like an idea begins to enter lived experience.

Turns out, nothing was missing. Something simply needed to move.

The Buddha’s teachings are traditionally described as the Turning of the Wheel of Dharma. The symbol is important. A wheel does not leap forward. It turns gradually. Each rotation covers ground and builds upon the last.

Traditionally, the Dharma is spoken of in terms as Three Turnings, each clarifying a deeper dimension of understanding. But the Wheel of Dharma does not turn only when teachings are spoken or ancient texts are translated and preserved.

It turns when the Dharma is lived.

When wisdom and compassion move through a human life, the wheel is turning. When understanding moves from concepts into conduct, the Dharma continues to flourish in the world.

There is a common belief that awakening begins after realization. But in lived experience, it is often the other way around.

A small recognition arises. A sense that something is possible. A sense that the ground we have been familiarizing with holds something true. That recognition naturally calls forth cultivation, because what is present is meant to be brought into the light.

In Tibetan, the phrase lam khyer is used, meaning to carry, to bring along. Practice is not something confined to formal sessions or remote retreats. It is something we carry into our lives.

We carry awareness into how we walk. Care into how we speak. Patience into how we listen. Generosity into how we work.

This is the Dharma set in motion. Not as a performance. Not as a truth proclaimed from on high. Simply lived. The Dharma begins to shape our life. This is the work we are called to do. This is what we have to offer.

Gampopa expressed this movement through a short aspiration prayer known as the Four Dharmas of Gampopa:

Grant your blessings that my mind turn towards the Dharma.
Grant your blessings that my Dharma practice progresses as the path.
Grant your blessings that the path clarifies confusion.
Grant your blessings that confusion dawns as wisdom.

This verse does not describe an end state. It's a regenerative cycle, a recursive loop rather than a linear progression. Life gives rise to opportunities for practice. Practice deepens as a life becomes oriented around the path. Confusion and difficult circumstances are taken onto the path and worked with, giving rise to wisdom. That wisdom, in turn, reshapes how we meet life.

The aspiration here functions as a compass. It aligns us again and again with the path, reminding us not of some far off destination of where we should be, but of how to continue to travel a liberating path.

When we speak of blessings in this context, we are not asking for something to be bestowed on us from outside. We are acknowledging our relationship, with the teacher, with the lineage, with the Three Jewels, and with those who have walked this path before us and with us. Just as importantly, we are expressing a willingness to be receptive to what is already present in us.

Blessings name what becomes possible when the mind is oriented toward practice. They soften our resistance, our ego. They give us the courage to meet with difficulty. They allow problems to be worked with rather than avoided. Over time, what once felt like an ordinary, conflicted mind reveals its deeper nature as ever-present awareness.

Setting the Wheel of Dharma in motion does not require a dramatic decision or realization. It begins when what is recognized in us is allowed to move. When practice is carried into life. When wisdom and compassion are shared through ordinary actions, relationships, and responsibilities.

A prayer wheel sitting in stillness contains everything it needs. So do we.

When that recognition arises in you, and it will, there is a natural impulse to engage, to let what is present begin to move.

That is how the Wheel of Dharma is set in motion.