I interpret the Buddhist Wheel of Life and Death mandala for myself in slightly different ways at different times. Here's one interpretation.
The wheel itself represents the egoic realm of personal [cognitive/behavioral] psychology, [as constructed and represented by] Yama, [who inhabits] the realm of invisible spiritual forces, studied in the modern world by parapsychology and transpersonal psychology. The Buddha field represents the realm of unconditioned love, the source of all, and the domain of religion. Since each of the two outer realms subsumes the realm or realms depicted interior to it, all three together, the full range of existence—or all-encompassing consciousness—comprise the realm/domain of religion.
Per Yama's design, human awareness is usually confined to the wheel, or some portion of it. In this predicament, it cannot fathom the existence of either of the two superior/containing realms and is doomed to suffer as an alienated, fearful ego exclusively for Yama's sustenance. Rarely an individuated human awareness will be confronted—find itself engaged in hyper-communication, as it were—with Yama or some other non-human, non-physical intelligence, or otherwise find itself exposed directly to one or more alternate realities (or, generally, to the realm of infinite possibility). Such exposure may result in extreme ontological shock to the ego, resulting in its near or total destruction—a "spiritual emergency," in the words of Stanislov Grof.
The person in crisis finds, again according to Yama's design of [the] modern [world | human society], and following the pattern of physical predators, that he has been "cut from the herd," such that, not only can the victim find no assistance from others of his kind, he finds himself fearfully and actively derided, humiliated and officially branded "psychotic" (defective, in other words). This utter alienation sets the stage for Yama's suggestions of suicide, which, when carried out, represents a step toward Yama's ultimate goal, the destruction of the entire human race, who, together (at least potentially), embody love.
At this critical point, however, the person may choose instead (only two choices remain now, death or life) to allow the ego to disintegrate, to forsake his own previous life of human drama [and pretense] for the life of the spiritual warrior. He accepts his experience as real and that it sets him apart from most others who remain (as he was before) unwilling—even unable—to allow the existence of a larger and incomprehensible world. And with this battered heart, beating in concert with the suffering of all, and his new awareness of the cause of suffering, he looks to alleviate it where he can, without thought of reward or even acknowledgment, impeccability being virtually his only defense against the circling wolves of darkness, looking for any opening to take him down.
