Category Archives: visionaries

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The Ten Oxherding Pictures

A Holiday Gift from the Buddhist World to all of us.

The ten Oxherding Pictures from Zen Buddhism represent the stages and path to awakening, integration and enlightenment, with the Ox representing our True Nature and the Oxherder each of us, the embodied being. It is important to note that the stages are not linear but spiralic and multi-dimensional, as we usually can get glimpses of more advanced levels before we have truly completed and integrated the any or all of the previous ones.

Also, we may often be working with several stages at the same time. More subtle awakenings in one level may trigger unconscious and unresolved traumas stored in the earlier levels that then need to be revisited, transformed and integrated. Then, the energy held in trauma is resolved and free to use for deeper growth.

There are many variations on the ten pictures representing the stages, and these are usually accompanied by poetic verses and/or commentary describing the journey. The paintings seen below are traditionally attributed to 天章周文 Tenshō Shūbun (1414-1463), of the Muromachi period in the late fifteenth century and are found at the Shōkokuji temple in Kyoto, Japan.

These stages can be seen as three sets of three transformations, with the final stage standing alone. The first three are the beginners journey, the second three those of the intermediate student, and the final three the most subtle and refined. The tenth transcends all and resolves as the awakened Buddha in the world helping others. Looking more deeply and ironically, we find that ultimately it is the Ox who is training and leading the Oxherder

1: Seeking the Ox
We know something is missing in our lives, but don’t know what it might be, or where to look. Our souls ache, our spirit feels fragile. The spiritual journey begins, but our minds are full of confusion and delusion. Our search is random and we cannot find the Ox anywhere. This is Dante at the beginning of The Divine Comedy.

2: Seeing Tracks of the Ox
Through study and guidance we begin to get glimpses. Maybe we discover yoga or meditation, or find spiritual teachers or writings that inspire us. But although we see the tracks, the Ox is still unseen, unknown. The tracks give us some confidence and we continue seeking, driven by the awakening cosmic impulse to discover/uncover the fullness and truth of our Being. The Ox is calling us.

3: First Glimpsing the Ox
There is the Ox. Wow! So magnificent! How did we ever not see! But the Ox remains elusive, disappearing into the forest. How could that be? Our minds are still confused, our seeking still undisciplined. The Ox teases us. She is everywhere and then nowhere to be found. Our mental habits and beliefs still dominate in spite of the revelation and we struggle to find ground. We are still beginners on the journey.

4: Catching the Ox
We finally catch the ox and grasp the rope to hold her, but she is wild and free, used to cavorting in the fields. We must hold the rope firmly and steadily. The rope of course is our evolving meditation practice and this is where it gets more serious. We are no longer beginners. We are in the realm of un-abiding awakening and must be ‘all in’ with our practice to stabilize the ground. Habits and conditioning have many tentacles extending into the unconscious, so our discipline must become stronger. The Ox keeps us on our toes.

5: Taming the Ox
As our practice becomes stronger, we can hold the rope more loosely as the Ox is relaxing somewhat. It is actually the mind that is relaxing as we begin to realize that the Ox is always steady and it is our minds that are wild and untamed. By relaxing our efforts, our practices can now include resting in the infinite and we become more comfortable in stillness and mystery. Habits still arise as the unconscious has many layers and levels of confusion and trauma, but we recognize the reality that our thoughts arise and fall from the depths of silence and that our delusion is self created.

6: Riding the Ox Back Home
The seeking and struggle come to an end and we can let go of the rope as Ox and herder are one, moving effortlessly together though the world. Buddha Nature is awake and free and we feel spontaneous joy and happiness. The Oxherder plays his flute for the birds and children of the village. This joy and delight can be a surprise as the practice has seemed quite serious at times. Unseen unconscious traumas may still exist so vigilance is still required.

7: Ox Forgotten, Self Alone
The Ox is now gone and the Oxherder sits at home alone. This is ‘Self as ‘I am’ without the need to ‘be something. This is Kaivalya of the Yoga Sutras, Purusha distinct from Prakriti. Up until now, there has remained a subtle sense of duality, of practice and life, of spiritual and not spiritual. This now dissolves. There is no longer ‘something to do’. Everything is meditation and nothing is special. Things are ‘just as they are’.

8: Ox and Self Both Forgotten
Total Emptiness. No concepts, ideas or beliefs, no sense of separateness. Even the “I am” is gone. All gone. Not even the scent of ‘holiness’ or special-ness remains. Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate.

9: Return to the Source
From the realization of Emptiness emerges the realization that the amazing flow of life always continues on in its own perfection. Seasons come and go. Cherry trees bloom in the spring. Birds sing and the rivers flow. Stars are born and others explode into cosmic dust. Emptiness is Fullness, Fullness is Emptiness. Bodhi svaha!

10: Returning to the Marketplace with Helping Hands
The enlightened being joyfully joins the world to aid all beings on their journey. Freedom, wisdom and compassion are the roots of action. Enlightenment is not passive but celebratory and engaged.

Here are some other perspectives:
From Tricycle Magazine
https://terebess.hu/english/Kuoan1.html
https://terebess.hu/english/oxherd0.html

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Embodying Presence: Fall 2022

Administrative Details: Tuesday

The first class will be on Tuesday, September 12, 9:00-11:00 am PDT (12:00 – 2:00 pm EDT), and will run for 13 consecutive weeks, ending on December 13. $360 for the series, no drop-ins. (Adjustments can be made for regular students with some previous commitments.) A video of the class will be available every week. You can register by e-mailing me at yogarthur@aol.com where I can give you more info on payment etc.

Administrative Details: Saturday

There will be four Saturday classes, 9 – 11 am PDT (PST): September 24, October 22, November 19, December 17. $110 for the four classes: $30/class for drop-ins. Five students minimum per class.

Basic Class Structure

The class begins with a 20 – 25 minute meditation, beginning with guidance on heart opening and then sitting in silence (shikan-taza, the Zen practice of ‘just sitting’.) followed by a check in for questions on practice. Then a period of free movement of your own choice, a demonstration/explanation of the embodied theme of the day and your own personal explorations of the theme. The class will end with a chance for follow up questions, and if time permits, another short meditation.

Class Themes

The core categories are Being, Becoming and Belonging: Being is our shikantaza practice andworking with the Heart Sutra and its challenging pointing to emptiness.. I am currently working on the embodied themes for the fall session (becoming) which will include deeper explorations of the three dantiens through pelvis, ribs and skull bones, the four limbs, working with diaphragm and breath and some spherical, circular and spiralic energy patterns that occur from cell to skin. (More being!) Belonging will include world on healing our ancestral lineage through grandmothers and great-grandmothers as well as the support of our emerging and evolving sangha.

Reading Homework

I have been spending much time with these two books. Powerful and inspiring, but challenging!

Being: “Cultivating the Empty Field” The Silent Illumination of Zen Master Hongzhi , translated by Taigen Daniel Leighton with Yi Wu. Wonderful descriptions of the ‘undescribable’ with guidance on practice (Cast off the body-mind – then cast off ‘casting off”).

Becoming and Belonging: Essence with The Elixir of Enlightenment: The Diamond Approach to Inner Realization
(two books in one volume) by A.H. Almaas (pen name for Hameed Ali).

Hameed articulates the process of awakening through recognizing and transforming the ego structures, and how embodying awakening activates the many facets of ‘Essence’, such as courage, compassion, curiosity, love, and more. He also references Taosit Vedic, Buddhist and Sufi teachings to show the universality of awakening, as well as Western psychological pioneers and explorers to help understand the developmental processes of the ego. This is a rare and extraordinary book by one who has mastered the practice and the supporting scholarship.

If you are not familiar with Hameed, here is a recent interview of him with Tami Simon.

gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svahah

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Embodying Presence: Class Five and Review


“Everything is meant to be let go of, that the soul may stand in unhampered nothingness.” Insight from the 13th century German mystic and theologian, Meister Eckhard.

Compare with Patanjali I-3: Then the Seer stably abides as its own True Nature

Unhampered nothingness! What a great image. See, feel and keep letting go. Taste it, Be it.

Continue to raise up the vibratory energy field of the body through through somatic samadhi practice, using breathing as vehicle to awaken sensation-perception-integration. Presence is a felt sense of ‘Stillness’ and vibrancy.

Continue to dampen down reactivity (citta vrtti nirodhah) with discrimination, patience and a sense of humor. This is our ‘letting go’ practice.

Continue to find the ‘gaps’ of emptiness/stillness and let our attention rest there. “Now’ is a great portal.

Continue to be ’embodying presence’ throughout all of our daily activities, paying special attention to our reactivity to our experiences, just as we do when sitting. We have no control over the experiences, but we do in our relationship to them.

Awakening the vibrancy of the Middle Dantien

Continue to explore your diaphragm:

Yang explorations to feel its movement, strength and elasticity. (Feel the diaphragm pushing down on the abdominal organs on inhalation and releasing back upward into the chest cavity on the exhalation)

Yin explorations to feel its sensitivity. (Feel the breath as it comes down through the nostrils and lands on the diaphragm. What regions are sensitive/conscious, which insensitive/unconscious.

Feel the diaphragm and pelvic floor moving as an integrated whole, it whatever way works for you.

Trace the crura, right and left, to the coccyx if you can. (Anatomy books all show it ending abruptly in the lumbar.)

Allow the diaphragm to gradually become softer, gentler, more open and receptive, and let the heart rest upon it.

Opening the heart center and awakening the chest.

Traditionally called the Moro or startle reflex, here here the baby first opens her arms outward, and then closes them in. Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen has expanded our exploration possibilities by reframing a more mature expression of the Moro. We can call it the ’embracing reflex’ and experience its deeper levels at the heart center by playing with these movements using the breath.

1. Let the in breath open the arms wide, feeling the organs expanding, allowing the heart to rest and keeping the back soft. On the out breath allow the arms to return in a circular embrace, opening and widening the back body while keeping the organs open and the heart resting.

2. Same as above only reversing the actions with the breathing. Let the in breath gather the arms in an embrace and on the out breath allow the arms to open out to the world.

3. These can be done sitting, standing or lying on the floor.

Supplemental Explorations and Fun Inquiries on the number 5

The five “yoga vitamins” are key components to practice. These are attitudes of mind from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras that create a state conducive for awakening.

I-20 shraddhaa-viirya-smrti-samaadhi-prajnaa-puuvaka itareshaam
The samadhi of others (one’s who achieve samadhi in this life) is accompanied by faith, strength, memory, meditation and wisdom.

Shraddha, loosely translated as faith, is the full clarity and pleasantness of the mind field. Like a benevolent mother, she protects the yogi, says Vyassa. It is an inner confidence that it is in fact possible to awaken and move out of suffering and confusion. Spending time in the company of those who radiate love, compassion and wisdom nurtures this. It builds enthusiasm which leads to virya.

Virya, strength, energy, vitality, accumulates with the inner confidence of shraddha and the results of practice. Virya can also be seen as creativity, the power to create, and has traditionally been associated with celibacy. The tantrikas have a different point of view about this.

Smrti or memory, mentioned previously in I-6 and I-11, is recalling states of deep inner peace and clarity as a way to re-stimulate the neuronal circuitry associated with these states and strengthen them.

Samadhi practice deepens and further wires the circuitry of the absorption state. The more time spent here, the easier it becomes to sustain as a natural state. This is Hebb’s axiom applied to yoga.

Prajna or wisdom arises through samadhi practice and reinforces our capacity to make intelligent decisions as we go through our daily activities. Intelligent decisions do not lead to negative mind states and further suffering.

The Five Kleshas : PYS II – 2 to II – 12: These ‘afflictions’ are the primary obstacles to Awakening. They are:

Fundamental Ignorance or avidya (not seeing)
Mistaking the Egoic Process for the Self (asmita)
Grasping (raga)
Aversion (dvesha)
Fear of death (abhinivesha)

The Five Vrttis : correct perception, mistaken perception, imagination, sleep and memory (PYS I-5 to I-11)

The Five Skandhas: The Buddhist model of the development of the egoic structures and processes

The Five Koshas: The Five ‘sheaths’ or layers of embodied consciousness

The Five Yamas: PYS II – 30, 30 Habits to avoid:
violence, dishonesty, thievery, addiction to sex, hoarding

The Five Niyamas: PYS II – 32 Rules to Follow:
cleanliness, contentment, discipline, self study, allowing your Divinity to manifest.