… the flat tire represents mental structures that arise according to conditions from past karma, which influence how we perceive.
Imagine your car has a flat tire and the ride is very bumpy. Rather than stop and fix the flat, you keep driving. What could be a smooth ride with functional tires becomes very uncomfortable, but since you do not notice that the tire is flat, you keep your foot on the gas pedal! In ancient India, ease (sukha) conveyed the sense of a chariot running swiftly or easily (having a good axle-hole), whereas dis-ease (duḥkha) signified an uncomfortable chariot ride. In the analogy, the flat tire represents mental structures that arise according to conditions from past karma, which influence how we perceive. Just as in the case of the car, if we do not tune up our mind, we will have impairments to our ordinary experience. Like the bumpy ride, our cognitive and emotional apparatus will lead to a warped view of how we relate to the world around us.
The Buddha noticed that people experience a lot of uneasiness in their lives.
The Buddha noticed that people experience a lot of uneasiness in their lives. The word Buddha comes from the root √budh, meaning to wake up. As a past participle, buddha means woken up or awakened. The epithet “Awakened One” also suggests its opposite: many people live their lives not fully aware of how their experience of reality comes about, so they misperceive reality as if in a dream. In contrast, the Buddha has awoken to perceive his experience as it is, without the interference of distorted mental structures that lead to dis-ease, or suffering. By practicing meditation, he realized that two obstacles–ignorance and afflictions–influence how we see our self and world (ignorance) and contribute mental and emotional interferences in each moment of perception (afflictions). The Buddha realized that the dis-ease being experienced was caused by the arising of conditions fueled by past karma that led to habitual reactions. He understood the moment-to-moment arising and passing away based on conditions of these forces that transform the perception of self and objects. Understanding the cause of dis-ease, he realized that there could be a cessation of dis-ease. Then the Buddha taught how to stop the dis-ease, how to fix the tire so to speak so that the car runs smoothly.