The Ten Bulls of Zen began as a Taoist teaching story in China, and was adapted and adopted during the 12th century by Cha’an (Zen) master Kuo-an Shih-yuan (Kakuan Shien).
In the pasture of this world, I endlessly push aside the tall grasses in search of the bull. Following unnamed rivers, lost upon the interpenetrating paths of distant mountains, my strength failing and my vitality exhausted, I cannot find the bull. I only hear the locusts chirring through the forest at night.
In America, we grow up being told that we can be anything we want and thus the onus is on us to create a self and then sell it to the world. We spend about 25 years trying to create a functional self and then spend the rest of our lives trying to escape it. One day we realize that we are not the story that got created along the way. Mostly, what we notice is a feeling that there is more to this life than what we have been taught. Naturally, some sort of a sojourn begins. In the larger world, Joseph Campbell calls this the Hero’s Journey, but in zen we just call it the path.
Whether daydreaming at work, reading books, or going to events, we begin to wander. Like the oxherder in the drawing, we discover an ability to open ourselves to the world around us. In this first drawing, the oxherder enters the wilderness. All around, the air is filled with birdsong, a stream provides crystalline water, and the forest is filled with creatures to guide us. Still, the oxherder’s steps trepidatiously as he looks around anxious for something he has only yet seen in the midst of his heart. There must be something more and, not finding it in the world we know, a vision calls us to the wilderness.