The Ten Ox-Herding Pictures Revisited

In the Ten Ox-herding Pictures a little child and an ox are depicted. The ox is the essential self which we are seeking. The little child represents the self of the phenomenal world which wants very much to grasp the essential self - not through concepts and thoughts, but as it really is. This little child (the self of the phenomenal world) is, in fact, always seeking something. It wants money, status, and fame. But life is more than just money, more than just status, and more than just fame. So, the self goes on seeking, now through this philosophy, now through that religion, and endeavors to grow and to make as much progress as possible. There are some who are defeated by the struggle, become neurotic, and even go so far as suicide. For them the spirit of seeking something has operated only as a minus factor; the fact that they are still expending energy and continuing to seek something has not changed. But why is it that men and women always seek something in this way? According to the teaching of Zen, men and women are essentially perfect and complete, in reality limitless and absolute (this is called "buddha" [hotoke] or "essential buddha-being" [honrai-jôbutsu]). Nevertheless, though being such, they appear phenomenally as imperfect, limited, relative, passing sinful beings (sometimes this is called "ordinary people" [bompu], and sometimes "living beings" [shujô]). Besides, although human being are born this way, they cannot know the essence (Buddha nature) of their own perfection and limitless absoluteness. The Ten Ox-herding Pictures have concretely depicted the process in which the imperfect, limited, and relative self (the little child) awakens to the perfect, unlimited, and absolute essential self (the ox), grasps it, tames it, forgets it, and completely incorporates it into the personality. Stage 1 SEEKING THE OX

https://terebess.hu/english/img/cow01.jpg The desire has arisen to seek the essential self, the original self (the ox). It is known as the "first stirring of the heart" [sho-hosshin] and is indeed a precious and beautiful movement. Although there are billions of people living on this earth, there are only very few who know that the essential self is completely perfect and absolutely limitless. Stage 2 FINDING THE TRACKS

https://terebess.hu/english/img/cow02.jpg You read and understand the sutras, or study the various teachings of Shakyamuni and of the patriarchs, and come to a conceptual understanding of the content of their experience. That is to say, it is the stage in which you have understood "cerebrally" the existence of the ox. Stage 3 CATCHING SIGHT OF THE OX

https://terebess.hu/english/img/cow03.jpg You for the first time escape from the fetters of the ego and see reality just as it is. Stage 4 SEIZING THE OX

https://terebess.hu/english/img/cow04.jpg See clearly, without the mediation of concepts, that the essence of your self is completely empty, and that because the essential self is empty it has the unlimited ability to become anything. The expression in the Prajna-Paramita Sutra, "Form is emptiness," refers to this reality; it is neither a thought nor a concept. Stage 5 TAMING THE OX

https://terebess.hu/english/img/cow05.jpg Grasping clearly the fact that the essence of your self is completely empty [ninku] and at the same time all beings in the universe are also completely empty [hokku]. Stage 6 RIDING THE OX HOME

https://terebess.hu/english/img/cow06.jpg You were able to grasp your true self. Stage 7 OX FORGOTTEN, PERSON REMAINING

https://terebess.hu/english/img/cow07.jpg Forgetting the ox. Both the ox to be sought (the true self) and the seeker also are totally void and empty of content. Once this is understood, the ox and the seeker are totally one. Stage 8 PERSON AND OX BOTH FORGOTTEN

https://terebess.hu/english/img/cow08.jpg Experience the nothingness. The basis of Zen is to grasp this world of nothingness through experience. Zen without this experience is merely a conceptual Zen and amounts to nothing more than playing around with plastic models of Zen. Stage 9 RETURNING TO THE SOURCE

https://terebess.hu/english/img/cow09.jpg The fact that there is no distinction between self and others simply continues without end Stage 10 ENTERING THE MARKETPLACE WITH ARMS HANGING LOOSE

https://terebess.hu/english/img/cow10.jpg All is peaceful under the sun. Compassion arising out of the body even without Dharma-bonds.