..续本文上一页and that, not finding the object previously indulged in, unable to break the rope of mindfulness and to run away, sits down and lies down close to that same object (of mindfulness) by way of neighbourhood concentration and attainment concentration (upacarappanavasena). Hence the ancients said:

　　Just as a man would tie to a post

　　A calf that should be tamed,

　　Even so here should one tie one”s own mind

　　Tight to the object of mindfulness.

　　In this commentarial simile the herdsman fixes a post and ties the calf to it, whereas the bull in the Zen pictures is tethered to a tree.

　　The two commentaries where this simile occurs are the Pali translations made by Buddhaghosa Thera in the fifth century A.C. of the original Sinhala Commentaries which go back to the third century B.C. The Ancients (porana), anonymous great masters, referred to in the passage quoted above (and in numerous other places in the Pali Commentaries), may belong to an even earlier date than the Sinhala Commentaries themselves, i.e. earlier than the third century B.C. In this passage the last verse, attributed to these Ancients, contains in miniature the simile of the calf. Thus the story of the taming of the bull can perhaps be traced back to a period even earlier than the third century B.C.

　　The Ancients had in four short lines compared tersely and concisely the training of the mind to the taming of the calf. The commentators enlarged on it with more details and explanations. Zen masters developed and elaborated the same idea, depicting through the medium of beautiful drawings the fascinating story of the gradual training, purification and perfection of the mind. Behind this development there seems to have been a common Buddhist tradition. Both the Theravada and the Mahayana seemed to have followed a common commentarial tradition.

　　In the ”Ox-herding Pictures” the ox is black at the beginning, but in the course of its taming and training it gradually becomes white, until finally it is completely white. The underlying idea is that the mind, which is naturally pure, is polluted by extraneous impurities and that it could and should be cleansed through discipline and meditation.

　　There are in the Anguttara-nikaya two very important and essential suttas which serve as index to the concept of the black ox gradually becoming white. One sutta says: Pabhassaram idam bhikkave cittam, tan ca kho agantukehi upakkiesehi upakkilittham. (Bhikkhus, the mind is luminous and it is defiled by adventitious defilements.) The other says: Pabhassaram idam bhikkhave cittam, tan ca kho agantukehi upakkilesehi vippamuttam. (Bhikkhus, this mind is luminous, and it is freed from adventitious defilements.) Further, these two suttas state that there is no cultivation of the mind (citta-bhavana) for the uninstructed ordinary man who does not understand this exactly as it is, but that the cultivation of the mind is possible for the instructed noble disciple who understands this exactly as it is.

　　It is instructive to note here that there is a striking agreement between this concept of citta in the two suttas above and the Mahayana doctrine of the tathagatagarbha. Citta is qualified by the Pali word pabhassara. The Lankavatara-sutra (a Mahayana sutra of a later date than the Anguttara-nikaya and which has greatly influenced Zen), qualifies tathagatagarbha by the corresponding Sanskrit word prabhasvara (luminous). It says that the tathatagarbha is prakrtiprabhasvara (luminous by nature) and prakrtiparisuddha (pure by nature), but it appears impure ”because it is defiled by adventitious defilements” (agantuklesopaklistataya). (Cf. the Pali expression in the two suttas above: agantukehi upakkilesehi upakkilittham.) In the Lankavatara-sutra the term tathagatagarbha is used as a synonym for alayavijnana.…

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