Ox Herding

[Kevin Benbow]

What do you all think of the series of Ox Herding pictures.

Gassho

Klb

Sat today

[Meian]

What do you all think of the series of Ox Herding pictures.

Gassho

Klb

Sat today

I'm sorry, I don't understand the reference. What are Ox Herding pictures? Please explain? Thank you.

gassho
kim
st

[Shinshi]

They are a bunch of bull.

Sorry, couldn't resist.



Kim, here is a reference

https://tricycle.org/magazine/ten-oxherding-pictures/

I am pretty sure that in the long past Taigu did a series of talks about them.

Gassho, Shinshi

SaT-LaH

[Risho]

hahahaha

[Shinshi]

In case anyone is interested here are links to the thirteen talks presented by Taigu. back in 2009 - 2010. The archive pages are a little messy but the links to the videos are there.

1. http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/a...-zen-text.html
2. http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/a...ctures-ii.html
3. http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/a...tures-iii.html
4. http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/a...ctures-iv.html
5. http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/a...ictures-v.html
6. http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/a...ctures-vi.html
7. http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/w...tures-vii.html
8. http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/w...ures-viii.html
9. http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/w...ctures-ix.html
10. http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/w...ictures-x.html
11. http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/w...ctures-xi.html
12. http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/w...tures-xii.html
13. http://www.treeleaf.org/sit-a-long/w...ures-xiii.html

[Meian]

Thank you for the references and bull-humor, Shinshi. [emoji16]

This is fascinating. I never heard of it, but now I want to learn more about it.

Also didn't realize there were archives of Rev Taigu's talks. TreeLeaf has such a huge library .... wow.

Gassho2
Kim
St

Sent from my SM-G930U using Tapatalk

[Jundo]

Hi,

In the Rinzai tradition, sometimes these pictures are taken as a series of progressive steps that one must pass through toward enlightenment at the end. The series was actually depicted a few different ways through history, one way starting with the boy first getting a hint of the bull (perhaps his wild mind that is yet to be tamed), then using a rope to break it, then letting the rope go, then proceeding to the boy and the bull becoming a harmonious one, the darkness of the bull gradually lightening into translucence then vanishing, then ending in emptiness in which both boy and bull vanish.



In another series, the empty circle leads to re-emergence back to the world, and the series closes with a "return to the marketplace" and ordinary life in the dusty, hustle and bustle world ...




However, I would say that most Soto folks don't look at this as a series of steps. It is more like an ongoing dance, back and forth each day and moment. One might see these as the dance in which the ordinary, separate self filled with its demands, judgments, fears and hopes, sense of individuality discovers the wholeness of emptiness in which the separate self flows unbroken, free of separation, friction, lack, anything more to demand. Sometimes the separate self boy is dominant, sometimes the wild bull mind is controlled and all is harmonious, sometimes all separation vanishes thoroughly ... in various mixes. It is not a series of progressive steps to a final enlightened end, but a living ride through changing scenery that is ever all these aspects appearing and vanishing, vanishing and appearing (this is Master Dogen's vision of continuing "Practice-Enlightenment" in our every thought, word and act).

Just like our Shikantaza Zazen, perhaps some days a bit more this way and some days a bit more that. However, you may notice that the "circle" of emptiness is present in all the pictures of the second series, right from the start. The moon never stops shining, seen or unseen, day or night, on clear days or on cloudy days when hidden from sight. I do prefer the set which includes the return to the "marketplace" of the dusty world as emerging from emptiness, rather than the series that just ends at emptiness. However, really, these pictures have no start, finish or end. Nor would I say that, for Soto folks, that there is a particular order of appearance.

So, I don't think that the message of the images is so mysterious.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Taigu's series is wonderful.

A poet named John Balcom did a nice series of translations/interpretations of the poems accompanying the second set (with the marketplace as the 10th picture):

==========

Translated by John Balcom
In: After Many Autumns: A Collection of Chinese Buddhist Literature
edited by John Gill, Susan Tidwell, Buddha's Light Publishing, 2011


MASTER KUOAN SHIYUAN

Master Kuoan Shiyuan was a twelfth century monastic most popularly known for his work “Poems on the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures.” The images, each accompanied by a short poem, depict ... spiritual development by using an ox as an extended metaphor for the practitioner's mastery of the mind.....

[Jundo Note: Perhaps the poems have more of that progressive Rinzai feel, as the author was a Rinzai master]


I. Searching for the Ox

Hurriedly parting the brush searching for it
Water wide, mountains far away, road long;
Tired and exhausted, still it eludes me.
The chirr of evening cicadas in the maple trees is all that is heard.


II. Spotting the Ox's Tracks

Its tracks can be seen under the trees along the river,
Parting the brush, do you see it?
Even in such a remote place deep in the mountains,
How can the vast sky hide its nose?


III. Seeing the Ox

An oriole calls from a green bough—
Warm sun, gentle breeze, willow-lined river;
No place left to hide
Its head and horns, there, real to life.


IV. Capturing the Ox

With all my effort, I take hold of it;
Strong and stubborn, it is hard to control.
One minute it is on the high plateau,
The next in a place deep among the clouds.


V. Herding the Ox

Never be without whip and tether
Or it might stray in the world.
Herded properly it will become tame,
Untethered it will follow unforced.


VI. Riding the Ox Home

Riding the ox, meandering homeward;
Seeing off the evening clouds, playing a flute,
Clapping and singing so happily—
Knowing well, why speak of it?


VII. Ox Forgotten, the Man Remains

Having ridden home on the ox
Both man and ox are free.
Though the sun is high, still the man seems to dream;
Whip and tether lie unused in his thatched hut.


VIII. Man and Ox Both Forgotten

Whip and tether, man and ox all empty;
The vast blue sky difficult to fathom.
How can a snowflake survive inside a fiery stove?
Now I join the enlightened ones of the past.


IX. Returning to the Source and Origin

It is a struggle to return to the source and origin,
Nothing surpasses this. Without sight or sound,
Unable to see the tree from the woods;
The water vast, the flowers red because it is so.


X. Entering the World, Hands Free

Barechested and barefoot entering the world
Covered with dust and ashes, smiling broadly;
There's no need for magic spells
To make the barren branch bloom.

[Kevin Benbow]

Thanks Jundo.

Gassho

Klb

Sat today

[Amelia]

Thank you, Jundo. Our lives could be mirroring any of the ox herding pictures, at any time, back and forth, out of order, backwards, and more than one at a time.

Gassho
Sat today, lah

[Meian]

Thank you, Jundo.

Gassho2
Kim
St lh

Sent from my SM-G930U using Tapatalk

[Tairin]

The Paul Reps book “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones” was one of the very first books on Zen I purchased. It is much worn. He has a chapter on the Ox Herding iconographs (the circled version Jundo posted above). I’ve always found them very intriguing. I understand that they represent a sense of progression. I also realize that one shouldn’t get hung up trying to identify with any particular picture. As Geika says, our practice may mirror any picture at any time.


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Jundo]

The Paul Reps book “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones” was one of the very first books on Zen I purchased. It is much worn. He has a chapter on the Ox Herding iconographs (the circled version Jundo posted above). I’ve always found them very intriguing. I understand that they represent a sense of progression.

Paul Reps would also be a more Rinzai interpretation back then in the 1950's with DT Suzuki and such.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Shonin Risa Bear]

Fell into D.T. Suzuki/Dumoulin/Kapleau/Snyder/Reps at an early age. The Ox Herding Pictures were almost the center of one's imaginings of that time. Can't say they didn't do some good (otherwise would be disparaging the Sangha, perhaps?) but always wondered about the Dogen chapter in Dumoulin.

Gradually became aware of Soto through Coevolution Quarterly, because Gregory Bateson, Robert Pirsig, Paul Hawken et al. Was going to look into San Francisco Zen Center when all heck seemed to break loose down there; backed away for decades. Lesson: if someone falls off the left side of the horse, there is no need to deliberately fall of the right side of the horse (paraphrase of C.S. Lewis in another context). As Paul Reps said, "Drink a bowl of tea and stop the war."

So: it's been said that "Dukkha" is an old Aryan word for "thumping cart wheel"; the cart jounces along the track badly because the axle is not centered.

Sit; centering.

But also, could we not use the image of a STUCK wheel, dragging along in the cart track? Again the axle is endangered. If one perseverates on the fourth picture, one's wheel will be stuck, just as one might stick upon a resentment, an anger, a greed, a delusion, a fearful anticipation of a future event. So it is as Jundo says, as Geika says, as Tairin says, as many say here, it is all the pictures all the time, do not get stuck, loosen that grip, unstick body and mind. Ah.

Tea this morning. There are golden-crowned sparrows awakening.

gassho
doyu sat today.

[Seiryu]

In John Daido's book "the eight gates of Zen" ( which was my first Zen book) he uses the of hearding pictures kind of the way martial arts use belts. Where someone who has just entered is on picture one and someone who is about almost ready to receive dhrama transmission is on picture 8

Gassho

Seiryu

St

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk