The Ten Ox Herding Pictures is a ten-part series based on a 12th Century Daoist and Buddhist depiction of the steps one takes towards enlightenment. Each piece in the series speaks of a certain stage and level of progression on this path. This guide has been an inspiration and a method of teaching for almost a thousand years, as well as sparking a tradition of depicting its example.
Artist Andrew Binkley continues this tradition through a process of assembling various photographs, which were taken throughout his travels in China. A process of addition and subtraction was done, allowing the piece to emerge, reminiscent of his background as a painter. This combination of images of various places and times then comprise a single image, going beyond one place and time.
We tend to think of a path leading somewhere, and it being a process of adding on and accumulating, but the Ten Ox Herding Pictures is about letting go and returning to the present moment, which is always here no matter what stage you may be on.
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The following are brief descriptions on each of the stages of the
Ten Ox Herding Pictures 十牛圖
1. The Search for the Ox · 尋牛
The ox has traditionally been a representation of one’s true-nature or of the mind. In this stage a man is lost, confused, can neither see where he is nor where he’s going. He searches for the ox, yet is caught in a web of his conditioning and in a state of suffering. Yet this is the first stage; recognizing you are caught and seeking a way out.
2. Discovering the Footprints · 見跡
The man discovers the markings left by the ox. This may come in the form of hearing from others, reading words, experiencing the presence of someone or something, which opens your eyes. It may also come from becoming aware of the traces of the mind and its reactions. But this understanding is still on an intellectual and conceptual level.
3. Perceiving the Ox · 見牛
This is where one sees the ox directly, no longer through theory, but through direct experience. Through reflection the ox is perceived, and with this realization there is now no turning back, it has penetrated into your entire perception of the world and self. The ox swims freely, an island unto itself.
4. Catching the Ox · 得牛
Confronting the self can be like dealing with a raging ox. The ox has been trained for so long to follow its desires, going here and there never quite satisfied. It wants greener grass, its restless and can’t stay still. But now one sees things in a new way, yet the mind is used to its old ways of dealing with situations and has its built up ideas of security. So when the ox is caught and its foundation is rocked a tremendous struggle ensues.
5. Taming the Ox · 牧牛
The man has seen the ox manifesting all the time now and realizes the root of all suffering lies with the mind. An ox herder uses a whip to keep the ox from wandering, just as one must use mindfulness to keep the mind from wandering. As a result the ox becomes gentler and follows its master, but we see in the distance there is still an ambiguous road ahead full of high peaks and low valleys veiled in clouds, still we can see home.
6. Riding the Ox Home · 騎牛歸家
Harmony with oneself and all things. Neither resisting nor controlling, the real effort is to have no effort and allow the ox to follow its own nature home. The practice becomes natural, like planting a seed and allowing it to grow. It may take a month to reach home, it may take a lifetime, but this is not his concern; he’s just riding.
7. The Ox Transcended · 忘牛存人
The ox never belonged to the man; he discovered it and let it go. But we tend to hold on to it and think of it as me and mine, it is just nature.
8. Both Ox and Self Transcended · 人牛俱忘
Letting it all go. Letting go of time, the world, the ox, mind, other, self, all concepts… It is the space where no thing exists. In Riding the Ox Home we had the knower and the mind, in The Ox Transcended there is the knower, in this stage there is simply knowing.
9. Reaching the Source · 返本還源
One quote from an unknown poet says, “Out of Emptiness appears that which IS. Poised in mystic selflessness, there is no self in anything particular: The 10,000 things arise and pass away.”
10. In the World · 入廛垂手
This, the final stage, has been interpreted by some to mean that the enlightened person then goes out and saves the world. For myself, I have always felt that enlightenment is being at peace with the world just as it is. Accepting things just as they are with no attachment or desire for this moment to be any other way, is true liberation.