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Ox-Herding Picture & Verse #10: Entering the Marketplace with Gift-Bestowing Hands

Over the past ten weeks at Bluegrass Zen, we have opened our lives to the pictures and verses of the traditional Zen Ox-Herding Series. I have come to appreciate how this series marks the movement, through image and word, into the freedom of presence, a life lived with flexibility that responds to the circumstances of the moment, unrestricted by my prejudices concerning self and world.

The pictures and accompanying verses have reminded me,

—That nothing is lost or gained. Awakening is who we are. As it says in the very first preface,

Originally nothing is lost, why all this searching?

—That I get in the way of myself. My perceived need for self-improvement and a better life focus my attention onto a projected “outside” problem in need of fixing. So engaged, I am unaware of the workings of the ox (awakening) in the life I am currently living.

—That my attempts toward the “better life,” a fix that will endure, will be frustrated. Upon surrender to what is here, my life as it is, I notice that awakening is always here. In the words of the series, I can “abandon whip and rope.”

—That by giving up control, the need to fix anything, the ox becomes my familiar. Awakening is alive and responsive. I greet the world as it comes. Here, I look for my self and can’t find such a thing to rest upon. Here, I disappear. Also, no awakening, no thing to search for. Here, it is “just this.”

Returning with New Eyes

The tenth in the ox-herding series takes us right back to the beginning—the full catastrophe that we perceived from the very start, the mess that set us out on this search for insight in the first place. But this time around we see with new eyes. This picture and verse show us the return: the movement right into the thick of it.

Where before there was a problem, something to fix, we now find what Dongshan called “the endless changes.” Every moment brings a new circumstance. When we find ourselves in accord with what is, this is where we find true compassion.

Preface and Poem, translated by Lewis Hyde:

Preface from The Disappearing Ox, Picture 10

He has closed the cabin gate behind him. Not even the wise notice him as he walks by. He has left all the apparatus of spiritual life behind. He follows the path before him, not trying to match the footsteps of ancient teachers. He carries a gourd into the market and comes home leaning on an old stick. Drinkers in taverns and butchers in meat shops see him and they wake up.

Verse from The Disappearing Ox, Picture 10

Barefoot, bare-chested, he enters the market.
Dusty, spattered with mud, how broadly he grins!
He has no need of magic powers.
Near him the withered trees spring into bloom.

And here, I dare my own rendition:

Shoes off, bare-chested, I enter the busy market.
Covered with dust and ash, and still, from ear to ear, a smile.
Who needs the ancient magic, the deep immortal secrets?
Here, just now, withered trees bud and spring into bloom.