Zen and the Ten Ox-herding Pictures, by Venerable Dr. Walpola Rahula
ZEN AND THE TEN OX-HERDING PICTURES
By Ven. Dr.Walpola Rahula
Preface By Graeme Lyall
Dr.Rahula”s article which follows was originally given as a lecture to the Buddhist Society, London, in 1975. Many followers of the Theravadin tradition have many misconceptions about the Mahayana tradition and about Zen in particular. They feel that the Mahayana tradition is almost another religion, whilst the Theravada is the only "pure" form of Buddhism. People with such a ”closed mind” can make little progress in Buddhism. Some Zen followers feel that Zen and Buddhism are two different teachings. I once heard a Zen practitioner ask the great Zen Master, Ven.Thich Nhat Hanh, what is the difference between Buddhism and Zen. He answered "none". He pointed out that Zen is based on the Satipatthana Sutta and advised all Zen practitioners to study this important Sutra so that they could understand the roots of their practice. Dr.Rahula shows that, indeed, Zen and traditional Theravada practice are essentially the same. He shows that the famous "Ten Ox-herding Pictures", which are very familiar to all Zen practitioners and attributed to the Sung dynasty Zen (Cha”an) Master Kaku-an Shi-en, have their roots in the early Buddhist Pali sources.
For those unfamiliar with the significance of these pictures, the ox is the mind - at first wild and untamed - prone to run hither and thither. The ox-herder first must lasoo the ox - but the ox continues to resist being still - wanting to do its own thing. The ox-herder must tie the ox to a tree so that being fixed to one point, it will soon submit and be calm. Once the ox is calmed and tamed, it can be ignored and the ox-herder no longer needs to pay the ox any more attention. This is a superb simile of meditation practice. Let us now see what Venerable Dr.Walpola Rahula has to say about ”Zen and the Ten Ox-herding Pictures”.
Introductory books on Zen usually contain ten or six drawings called ”Ox-herding Pictures”, depicting a story of taming an unruly, wild bull. These were drawn by some Zen masters of old, notably by Kaku-an and Jitoku of the twelfth century. The bull represents the mind and the herdsman who tames the bull is the yogi, the person engaged in meditation.
It is significant that this simile of the taming of the bull goes back to very ancient times. Discussing the import of the expression ”arannagato va rukkhamulagato va sunnagaragato va”, ”gone to a forest or gone to the root of a tree or gone to an empty (quiet) house (room)”, occurring in the Satipatthana sutta, the Pali commentaries elaborate: This bhikku”s mind (i.e. the meditator”s mind),/which was for a long time scattered among such objects as visible forms (rupadisu arammanesu) does not like to enter into the path (street) of a subject of meditation (kammatthana-vithi), but runs only into a wrong path like a chariot yoked to an untamed (unruly) bull. Just as a herdsman, who desires to break in an untamed calf grown up with all the milk it has drunk from the untamed (mother) cow, would remove it from the cow, and having fixed a big post on a side would tie the .calf to it with a rope; and then that calf of his, struggling this way and that, unable to run away, may sit down or lie down close to the post; in the same way, this bhikku (i.e. the meditator), who desires to tame the villainous mind grown up as a result of drinking for a long time of the pleasures of sense-objects such as visible forms, and having gone to a forest or to the root of a tree or an empty house, should tie it to the post of the object of the presence of mindfulness (satipatthanarammanatthamba) by the rope of mindfulness (sati-yotta). Then the mind of his, even after it has struggled this way …
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