The Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma could be regarded as a framework in Mahāyāna Buddhism for classifying in to stages and understanding the teachings of Buddha Śākyamuni.

1. The First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma

The first turning of the wheel of dharma refers to the earliest stage of the Buddha’s teachings, during which the Buddha taught the fundamental concepts, building blocks or the cornerstones of Buddhism like the ones below. The first turning of dharma wheel is also known as the Hīnayāna Buddhism stage, which is a relative concept compared with Mahāyāna Buddhism.

• Four Noble Truths
• Dependently Arising
• Five Aggregate

2. The Second Turning of the Wheel of Dharma

The second turning refers to the development of Buddhism, where the Buddha further elaborated and developed concepts regarding the world, based on the fundamentals above, which are more applied on personal prospective. In the second phase, the Buddha talked about the Emptiness nature, which is similar to the concept of dependently arising, while specially pinpoint that nothing in our world consists of a true self nature or independent existence.

Compared with the first turning of wheel, here the Buddha introduced the Bodhisattva path, which might be briefly concluded as the cultivation of Compassion and Wisdom towards all sentient beings as a practice for enlightenment and liberation, thus nirvana. For wisdom, it refers to the understanding and experience of emptiness.

3. The Third Turning of the Wheel of Dharma

The last turning of Dharma wheel refers to the teaching of Buddha nature, which means that all beings have a Buddha nature potential, while it only manifest after stains are removed, which include the unwholesome roots like Greed, Hatred and Ignorance.