Oxherding Picture Number One
By Ruben Habito
We have
started a series addressing The Ten Oxherding Pictures which come from the Zen
tradition as an expression of the path to self-realization. Each of the ten
Oxherding pictures represents a stage along the way. Today, we will address the
first oxherding picture.
The first picture in the series of ten is one
where we see a little child beginning to search for something. So, it is the
beginning of the search for the true self. There is a commentary entitled Riding
the Ox Home, by Willard Johnson, which presents an interpretative title for this
picture: In the beginning, struggling to emerge from confusion.
Today we
would like to just look at some elements pertaining to our own search, that
enable us to appreciate what is going on, wherever we may be in the
path.
Before going into greater detail, let me just recall one important
point in the general introduction offered last time. What we have here is not
just a linear progression wherein the first is the lowest and the tenth is the
highest. Instead, we are invited to see it in a circular movement.
* * *
Wherever we are, whatever stage we are in, that is part of
the circle, and that constitutes a manifestation of our true self. Each stage
has its own place in the full circle that is our true self.
One of the
koans that those who have experienced some glimpses of this world of
enlightenment are presented with, or challenged with, has a passage that goes
like this: each step is full and complete. And yet, that fact, that each step
already contains a fullness, does not make us just stop there and not take the
next step. Each step has to be taken in its own due time. And yet, each step is
a fullness to it, so that we are not just saying, well, I am not complete yet,
because I haven’t taken the next step.
We are invited to experience each
step as full, just as it is. So when we are in a certain stage, we are invited
to simply let ourselves be there, and let that stage take care of itself, and
let that situation be truly a mark of that circular journey where each step
manifests a fullness and yet which leads to the other.
If we are to
present this in terms that would also resonate with a theme in the Christian
tradition, we say that the Reign of God is already there, but also, it is not
yet. Now, in conceptual language these would seem to cancel each other out:
already there, not yet. But seen from within, namely that reality that is called
the Reign of God which signifies an entry of the Infinite into our finite lives,
we realize we are already there. We have been there right from the start. There
was never a time when we were not, if we can talk along those terms of time and
so on. One other way of putting this is thus: God’s Infinity covers all time and
all space, and therefore there is no place conceivable that God is not, just by
the very nature of what God is by definition. And yet, in that very realization
we experience also the invitation to continue to manifest it more fully. There
is this paradox of our human existence that we are incomplete historical beings,
moving toward completion in the fullness of time. God is there every step, and
yet, the following step must be taken.
* * *
So the first step then, involves the awakening to begin the
journey. What goes before that? Well, just from the implication, we can say that
there was a stage of just being in slumber, of not being awakened at
all.
Now, rather than going into too much conceptual detail, let me offer
some illustrations of actual persons who have manifested this stage in their own
path. The first person whom we are invited to look at is Shakyamuni himself. He
was born in the 5th century or so, BCE. There are differences in scholars’
opinions about the actual birth dates. But in any case, around the 5th century
there was a man born of a royal family, whose clan owned a big domain in
Northern India at that time, which now is under the territory of Nepal. This
young man was named Siddhartha, which by the way means, one called to complete
one’s being. “Artha” is “goal” or “meaning” or “purpose” and several other
related meanings, and “Siddha” means to complete. So Siddhartha is a name that
already indicates the actual destiny that this person was called to realize in
his earthly life.
He was born of this kingly clan, and was already
destined at birth to inherit his father's realm. And so, given the appropriate
time, he was destined to become a ruler of that domain. In a sense, he had
nothing more to worry about in life: everything was taken care of. From his
birth, all the stars were in his favor. He had everything anyone could have
wished for in this earthly life. And yet, somehow, the puzzle is, why would such
a person at 29, set all that aside, really literally divest himself of
everything, and begin a journey seeking “something more.”
So, again we
are told in many of those traditional accounts about his life that up to that
stage his father had tried to ensure that he would not be exposed to any
experience of want or of suffering. So he was brought up within the palace;
given everything that he would want and so on. His father sought to assure him
that he would be granted all the material and other needs that one could
imagine. And yet, for some reason or other, he was not satisfied with that. Now,
for some reason or other, is precisely our paradoxical way of saying it. And so,
what we can learn in looking at Gautama’s life, is that even given all the
material satisfaction that a human being can ever want, that just is not enough.
This reminds us of a song that was popular in the ‘60s or ‘70s, of Peggy Lee who
sang “Is That All There Is?” Now, we may be at a point where everything goes our
way, and yet some twinge of conscience makes us ask, “Is that all there
is?”
* * *
Somehow the human spirit is called to something greater than
whatever material satisfactions can ever fulfill. So this twinge from our inner
voice trying to rouse us from slumber, seems to be what has propelled many of
the great individuals who have contributed to human culture.
In the
Christian tradition, so many of the saints began their journey with that big
question, “is that all there is?” They began a quest for “something more.” In
the Jesuit tradition, its founder, Ignatius of Loyola, was already in his early
thirties when he began his search. Up to that time he had been spending all his
time and energy trying to gain honors and prestige at the court of Spain. He was
just engaged with all his energy upon winning the attention of royal personages,
especially the
noble ladies, so that he would win their favors and therefore
rise in the ranks. At one point, he was wounded in a battle, and that left him
hospitalized for about 6 months. But during those 6 months of recuperation, he
was able to take stock of his life, and he felt a big twinge of emptiness and a
longing grew in him which propelled him to understand a sense of a gap in his
existence. He also noticed the sense of fullness he would experience whenever he
would read lives of saints.
Here were individuals who lived not so much to fulfill the material wants, or
drives for power and money and self glory and so on, but lived fully dedicated
to the service of God and others. So somehow he felt that, looking at his
future, he too was called to a search on the spiritual level. This gave him a
very, very deep and inexorable sense of peace and
fulfillment that enabled
him to see through all his worldly and vain pursuits that had occupied him
before, and he simply realized that this was not the way he was meant to pursue
his life. And again, we don’t need to go into the details, but to make a long
story short, from that time on he undertook a path which lead him to a spiritual
search that eventually enabled him also to lead others in that kind of path
based on his own experiences.
Now let us go back to the life of Gautama.
He had all the material things that anyone could ever imagine that a human would
ever want: all the material wealth that he needed to maintain his physical life;
all the emotional support from a family; he had a child at that age of 29 when
he began his search. He also had the realization that he could have a lot of
worldly benefits---all the things that human beings look for: power, authority,
wealth, prestige and so on. And yet, the question for him was, is this all that
I am called to live for? And so, again, to make a long story short, it is said
that he saw his fellow human beings in different states of suffering; he saw
human beings in states of sickness, states of growing old and therefore losing
their capacities to function as a healthy human being, and he also saw death in
the face and realized this is also something that will happen to me.
So, face to face with these realities, the big question came: what is life
all about? And how can I really discover that true peace that will enable me to
live content with myself and at peace with the world? So that was the beginning
of his search. And as I have already noted, he left everything: his social
position, all his material wealth, and so on. He began his search, which took
him six years, until the experience of great awakening.
* * *
We will talk about that in our continuing teishos dealing
with the Ten Oxherding Pictures. At this point, what I would like to invite
everyone, is to ask yourselves: What were the circumstances that precipitated
the search in my case? Where, in my own life did I begin this search? And maybe
if we can come back to that original point or that point in our own historical
journey where the questioning began, perhaps we can again recover some of that
zeal, some of that enthusiasm, some of that freshness that was ours when we
began the search. This is so, especially along the way, if we are in this search
for some time now and we’re beginning to get bogged down in some kind of
routine. It is refreshing to come back to that point where we ask ourselves: “Is
that all there is?” What is there in life that is calling me to something
greater? There is a well known book by a Zen Master who came to the United
States, Shunryu Suzuki, entitled, “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.” This is an
invitation to always come back to that initial question: what is this all about?
This is beginner’s mind.
Another person who is of reference to us in
understanding this first picture of the Ten Oxherding Pictures is the Second
Patriarch in China, Hui-k’o, pronounced Eka in Japanese. “Wisdom Fruit” is the
literal meaning of his name. The Second Patriarch went to visit Bodhidharma, the
monk who was reputed to be a sage from the Western Regions. There was this
person from the Western parts (India), a foreigner, a stranger in China. He had
settled in some place near a forest and he had been sitting there and had been
living his life as a hermit; just living and spending most of his time sitting,
meditating, facing the wall of his cave.
His reputation grew around the neighboring villages, and so this young man--young, maybe in his early forties at that time--went to this sage and asked him. “Please tell me, what can I do with my life? My mind is not at ease; I am anxious about my life. My mind is not at rest, please set it at rest.” So there is something that made him very anxious or that somehow made him look for something more than what he was already doing at that time. It was a turning point in his life.
And so, Bodhidharma, as the story goes, asked him, “If your mind is not at
rest, bring that mind to me and I’ll set it at rest.” And that was Bodhidharma’s
way of inviting him to take hold of that mind that was causing that anxiety or
that was in that state of anxiety, by following the way that we are now taught
to sit in the Zen tradition: to sit still in a straight posture, breath in and
breath out in a regular and rhythmical way, both deeply and naturally, and let
our minds simply be at rest. Or let our mind be there so that we can present it
to Bodhidharma. And so, that’s what the Second Patriarch tried to do. The punch
line of the koan goes: “I have tried all my best and I have looked for that mind
and I have realized that it is unreachable.”
* * *
And so, the answer of Bodhidharma as the koan goes is,
“There, I have given rest to your mind.” This interchange is an invitation to
those who are practicing to actually see what was the experience of Eka or
Hui-K’o, the Second Patriarch,when he was finally able to realize “the
unreachable.” That’s the invitation for us. “I have realized that it is
unreachable.”
That is not a statement of despair or giving up the search,
but precisely a realization of something that points beyond oneself. To point
out, or rather exclaim from the bottom of one’s being that “it is unreachable”
is to simply admit that, what I’m looking for is not within the realm of the
finite. That which we grasp not within the material domain but precisely
something that goes way beyond that. It is that which we can call unreachable.
Hui K’o states: “Now I have realized that; now I am at peace.” That is the
implication of Hui-K’o’s answer--the experiential dimension of his discovery. It
is not just a denial of the need to go on
further, saying, “it’s unreachable
so I won’t go on from here.” But it is precisely a statement that its
unreachability is what I have realized, and so that gives me peace.
This
again brings us back to the first picture: what is that which we are looking for
in life? We are invited to look at that particular point, and as I asked each of
you who come to dokusan for the first time (or, for some individuals maybe I
need to keep asking it), what is it that you seek in this practice? And that is
a question that invites each one to come back to that point that leads us to
seek the path that will open our eyes to who we are.
So this is the invitation of the first picture: to again search our minds and
look for that precise point, so that we can appreciate what propels us along the
path. What is it that I am seeking? Is it inner peace? Is it the solution to the
question of life and death? These will be cast in different ways depending on
our own personalities, or depending on our own way of seeing ourselves in the
spectrum of different psychological characteristics and so on.
Well, it
can be phrased in many ways, but the main thing that we can say to describe it,
is that it is something that invites us to go beyond where we are right now. It
is something that arouses us from our slumber, always inviting us to reach for
the unreachable. And reach for an unreachable is not as this song, “Impossible
Dream” says, an impossible dream. But it is precisely an invitation to take the
next step from there.
* * *
So I’d like to just round off by saying that this first
picture is the picture that describes the beginning of our search. It is a
renewed invitation for all of us who are here to take the next step. And what is
the next step? Simply to be here, in this present moment. We are invited to take
Bodhidharma’s advise to the Second Patriarch: “Bring me that mind that is
anxious and not at rest, and I will set it at rest for you.” So let us continue
letting ourselves be propelled by that anxious mind that wants to seek peace.
And this will enable us to take the next step, that we may realize the
unrealizable; that we may reach the unreachable.
In Spanish there is a
word to describe the starting-point of the search: the word, “inquietud.” It is
not what we would translate in English as “inquietude.” But in Spanish,
“inquietud” refers to “something in me that leads me to go on further.” It is
not a negative term by any means. If there is an “inquietud” in me, there is
something in me that is being aroused from its slumber, and leads me to go on.
So let us take that as an invitation. Whatever stage we are, we are invited to
just listen to that
“inquietud,” that dynamic power which invites us to take
the next step. A recollection of the beginning of our path draws us out of our
slumber and stupor; giving us a new sense of freshness along the way.
(Editor’s Note: This is the second part of a series of articles on The
Ten Ox-Herding Pictures.)