The Ten Oxherding Pictures (IX)

Rev. Taigu again takes us for a ride with the next of the Ten Oxherding Pictures. He writes: “Riding the bull home… As one mounts the bull, rides the bull, the world and practice itself  are not experienced as  obstacles anymore. The bull as an object to grasp, a goal to reach has disappeared. Practice and self are intimate. In this, carefreeness, detachment, joy arise from the silence space of sitting. The boy is not worried anymore about where he should go, where the bull takes him to, what the Bull-boy will become. As the comment sates: this struggle is over; gain and loss are assimilated. The song of the flute is played by ten thousand things met and released. Forms and sounds play and are played. This dance is nothing but the Bodhisattva stepping into the world, freely playing with what comes and goes, fully interacting with things and beings without being caught by any…”