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Zen Buddhism Illustration: Ten Ox Herding Pictures (十牛圖)
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A. What is Ten Ox Herding Pictures (十牛圖)?
Ten Bulls or Ten Ox Herding Pictures (十牛; Japanese: jūgyū, Chinese: shíniú) is a series of short poems and accompanying pictures used in the Zen tradition to illustrate the stages of a practitioner's progression towards the purification of the mind and enlightenment, as well as his or her subsequent return into the world while acting out of wisdom.
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The best known version of the oxherding pictures was drawn by the 12th century Chinese Rinzai Chán (Zen) master Kuòān Shīyuǎn (廓庵師遠, Jp. Kaku-an Shi-en), who also wrote accompanying poems and introductory words attached to the pictures.
Source: Wikipedia - Ten Bulls
B. The Pictures and accompanied poems by Kuòān Shīyuǎn (廓庵師遠)
The bull never has been lost. What need is there to search?
Only because of separation from my true nature, I fail to find him.
In the confusion of the senses I lose even his tracks. Far from home, I see many crossroads,
but which way is the right one I know not. Greed and fear, good and bad, entangle me.
Understanding the teaching, I see the footprints of the bull.
Then I learn that, just as many utensils are made from one metal,
so too are myriad entities made of the fabric of self.
Unless I discriminate, how will I perceive the true from the untrue?
Not yet having entered the gate, nevertheless I have discerned the path.
When one hears the voice, one can sense its source.
As soon as the six senses merge, the gate is entered.
Wherever one enters one sees the head of the bull!
This unity is like salt in water, like color in dyestuff.
The slightest thing is not apart from self.
He dwelt in the forest a long time, but I caught him today!
Infatuation for scenery interferes with his direction.
Longing for sweeter grass, he wanders away.
His mind still is stubborn and unbridled.
If I wish him to submit, I must raise my whip.
When one thought arises, another thought follows.
When the first thought springs from enlightenment,
all subsequent thoughts are true.
Through delusion, one makes everything untrue.
Delusion is not caused by objectivity; it is the result of subjectivity.
Hold the nose-ring tight and do not allow even a doubt.
This struggle is over; gain and loss are assimilated.
I sing the song of the village woodsman, and play the tunes of the children.
Astride the bull, I observe the clouds above.
Onward I go, no matter who may wish to call me back.
All is one law, not two.
We only make the bull a temporary subject.
It is as the relation of rabbit and trap, of fish and net.
It is as gold and dross, or the moon emerging from a cloud.
One path of clear light travels on throughout endless time.
Both Bull and Self Transcended
Mediocrity is gone. Mind is clear of limitation.
I seek no state of enlightenment.
Neither do I remain where no enlightenment exists.
Since I linger in neither condition, eyes cannot see me.
If hundreds of birds strew my path with flowers,
such praise would be meaningless.
From the beginning, truth is clear. Poised in silence,
I observe the forms of integration and disintegration.
One who is not attached to "form" need not be "reformed."
The water is emerald, the mountain is indigo,
and I see that which is creating and that which is destroying.
Inside my gate, a thousand sages do not know me.
The beauty of my garden is invisible.
Why should one search for the footprints of the patriarchs?
I go to the market place with my wine bottle and return home with my staff.
I visit the wineshop and the market, and everyone I look upon becomes enlightened.
C. An interesting commentary on the 8th picture - Both Bull and Self Transcended -, by Jay L. Garfield and Graham Priest. (Emphasis in bold is mine)
Joshu introduced the term the “Great Death” to describe the initial stage of awakening. Dogen adopted this term, and it gained centrality for Hakuin, who linked it to Dogen’s phrase “the casting off of body and mind.” Dying in this way was compared by Hakuin to leaping from a high cliff into a void. One abandons the safe ground of substantialism or reification for the abyss of emptiness, something one can do only if one has confidence that there is, in fact, no bottom. Awakening—resurrection from the Great Death—is the recognition that existence makes sense only in endless free fall. In this free fall, one abandons the need for foundations: for substance as a foundation for attributes; for certain, given, axioms as the foundation for knowledge; for the self as a foundation for experience; for the permanent as the foundation for change; and even for emptiness as the foundation of the conventional. One awakens to the emptiness of emptiness and to the pervasiveness of impermanence and interdependence.
Reference : Jay L. Garfield and Graham Priest, “Mountains Are Just Mountains,” in Pointing at the Moon: Buddhism, Logic and Analytic Philosophy ed. Mario D'amato et al. (Oxford Uni Pr, 2009), p.74
Top Comment:
what I call the "realization of anatta".
;)
Also, I couldn't visit your link; just get a connection timeout. Is it correct?
An explanation of the Ten Ox Herding Pictures
Main Post: An explanation of the Ten Ox Herding Pictures
Top Comment: I tend to refer to D. T. Suzuki's description of the Ten Ox Herding Pictures for this . They are quite explicit and thorough :)