CIIS Public Programs Podcast

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This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. 

The Ten Oxherding Pictures is an image series that visualizes the Buddhist training path to enlightenment. The Ten Oxherding Pictures have served as a spiritual teaching tool for centuries, guiding seekers through the steps of awakening. But how are these images relevant today? 

In this episode, CIIS professors Dr. Debashish Banerji and Dr. Sara Granovetter have a conversation about posthumanism, the Oxherding series, the Jungian individuation process, and the disowned wild self. Together, they explore how the ox may represent a part of the psyche that is habitually pushed to the margins of consciousness. Discover what the Oxherding Pictures teach us about relating to the wild other within ourselves and the work of befriending it for spiritual awakening.   

This episode was recorded during an in-person and live streamed event at California Institute of Integral Studies on January 30th, 2025. You can also watch it on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube channel. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.

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Dr. Debashish Banerji: Thank you. And it's lovely to be with all of you and to have the pleasure of talking to Sara. This conversation is really about a paper Sara wrote, and I'll really be an interlocutor. But we'll have a dialogue about the ideas in your article. The article itself, I think there's a link to the article for those who received the notice, is carried in the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies in a special issue on Buddhism and psychology, which came out last year. I edited that special issue. Most of the articles in that issue have to do with how Buddhism has come to the West and the problems of translatability. And there, too, what is the nature of psychology in terms of cultural psychology, things that change from one cultural context to another. That's an important aspect of that. And today's talk that's based on the article that Sara wrote has to do with the Zen 10 ox herding pictures. Now, perhaps many of you have already seen these pictures. The pictures appear in Zen books. They're all over the web. And if you've been to some kind of a Zen group, they're often taught. They're used as a teaching device. The 10 pictures are used to teach you how to train your mind, your consciousness, and arrive at the goals of Zen. The pictures themselves go back to China, to its origins in Chan Buddhism around the 12th century by a monk called Kakuan. He painted the 10 pictures and wrote verses related to each. And you can see that the beginnings of Chan Buddhism in China actually go much further back. They go back to at least the sixth century. And it develops in a kind of a fertile environment of Taoism. Taoism is really like the seed culture from which Buddhism, Chan Buddhism, takes root and becomes what it is. It's important to realize that for two reasons. One is that the images themselves can be related to images of the ox and of masters sitting on the ox that turn up in Taoism. The other is that doctrinal Buddhism, you know, Zen Buddhism has its doctrinal roots in a number of branches of Buddhism that go before it. But Zen Buddhism downplays its doctrinal roots partly because of its hybrid beginnings in Taoism. And partly because it wants to get directly at experience. It's much more interested in experience. So these pictures have been interpreted by a number of Zen teachers. As I said, it's a teaching tool. It was a teaching tool in China, in Japan, and now in the West. But as a teaching tool, it changes its inflections as it moves. And particularly when you encounter it today, you look at the pictures, you get the message, and it turns into something abstract in our minds. So that's one of the effects of translating a cultural teaching from one place to another. It becomes abstract. It becomes just a teaching. So one thing to realize is that I think, Sara, what you've done with your article is bring our gaze back on the specifics of the ox and the oxherd. So in a way, we're looking back at what the pictures are all about. And the pictures themselves, as I said, they don't originate in Zen. They go further back. They go back to Taoism, and then they go even further back because we see images of oxes or bulls being tamed or even dominated in many cultures across the world. And in fact, we go all the way back to the early beginnings of agrarian society, when human beings emerged from the forest and made settlements, agrarian settlements, and the bovine was one of the bovine and the equine are the two major animals that make their way across the forest, come into the new domestic zone of the human. And you see, there are a variety of symbols. There's a way by which we turn our changes, our major social and ontological changes into symbols. And so the way the ox is turned into a symbol, a symbol through bullfights, through bull leapings, through the cult of mithras, for example, in Rome, and there's a variety of cultural tropes by which the ox is addressed as a symbol for domination. One can go much deeper into this entire area to be looked at. But this is one of the sort of remnants that comes to us through China and then through Japan, and now makes its appearance in these pictures. And I wanted to prelude our conversation with this, because in a way, what Sara is doing is to look back again at our origins and the kind of domestication processes by which we've become what we've become. We've become humanized. And so we can talk about a human before the human, and we can now talk about a human after the human, the post-human. So in a way, this is where Sara is putting our gaze back on these pictures to interpret it in ways that mean something much more to us than just a teaching tool. So I turn it over to Sara to talk about the images, and then we can go deeper into them. 

Dr. Sara Granovetter: Oh, wonderful. Thank you so much, Debashish. That was a wonderful introduction. And I do, I really want to go more deeply into this project of kind of looking at the ox in the paintings as more than just a symbol, really bringing that image alive and letting it teach us on its own terms. But first, as you say, I think I would like to just go into some of the more traditional understandings of these images, and alongside those traditional understandings, I also am going to kind of offer a parallel understanding from the perspective of Jungian individuation. And for those of you who are not familiar with Jung and the individuation process, individuation is kind of the spiritual quest for wholeness. And wholeness happens when the ego comes into a kind of conscious relationship with the big S Self. And the big S Self in Jungian understanding is the divine principle within. So I'm going to be sort of looking at that parallel understanding, and then we'll go back through and really kind of reinterpret and look at this through a new lens. And I just want to say there's a long history in Zen of turning teachings on their head. So in some ways, even though we are maybe looking at this in a somewhat unorthodox way, that is in some ways keeping true to that spirit. I think it was Linji who said, if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha. And that's sort of what we're doing here. So as Linji mentioned, the ten ox herding pictures have been used for centuries as an allegory for the process of attaining Buddha nature. And in this case, the ox would be a symbol for Buddha nature. And the ox herd is a person who is seeking Buddha nature, the person who's been separated from his own true nature and is trying to find his way back to the lost ox. And I might sometimes use the word seeker synonymously with ox herd as I'm going through. So this might be a good point if you want to take a look at some of your images. If we look at picture one, this picture is entitled, although there's many different versions of the titles, the title we have here is Searching For The Ox. And this picture depicts the ox herd searching in the wilderness for the ox. There's no ox in sight. And so this really represents the call to the spiritual journey, the beginning of the seeking path. And in this picture, the ox herd is still trapped in divided, egoic consciousness. He's driven perhaps by a sense of emptiness and separation, a sense that something is missing. And it's very similar when we look at this through the lens of Jungian individuation. The individuation process is often thought to begin with the wilderness journey, the call into the unknown. This is the seeking phase, one where we're alienated, but seeking that kind of reconnection. And then if we move on to picture two, this picture is entitled, Seeing the Traces. And here the ox herd, as you can see, he sees the footprints of the ox. He sees signs of the ox, and he begins to follow them. But there's no ox yet. And so in the traditional understanding, this is the phase of practice where the Zen student gets a deeper understanding of true nature with the help of the sutras, with the help of the ancient teachers. He begins to get closer to realization. However, at this point, the understanding is still more conceptual. It's still maybe somewhat intellectual. He sees the signs of Buddha nature, but he doesn't see the living body of the Buddha. And so we might think of this, if we're looking at this through the lens of Jungian individuation, as the segment of the journey where the Self, the big S Self, gives a sign. The ego has exhausted its usual ways of thinking and knowing. And in that state of surrender, the ego glimmers forward and gives him a sign of which way to go. So then if we move then to the next image, picture three, Glimpsing the Ox, this image depicts the ox herder gazing at the hindquarters of the ox. The front half is hidden behind a tree. The ox is faceless here. And so in the traditional understanding, this is the phase where the seeker has experienced Kensho. Kensho is a fleeting moment of initial awakening. It's a direct experience of ultimate reality, not through signs and symbols. And so this kind of full-bodied experience has occurred, but it's not yet complete. Right? Realization is not yet fully internalized. It's liable to slip away again quickly. And when we think about why is the ox faceless here, the traditional explanation is that it's faceless because it cannot be symbolized. Direct experience of realization cannot be symbolized. And so one explanation of this from a Jungian perspective, why is he looking at the hindquarters of the ox? And this is something I'm going to explore later. Is that the encounter of the ox's hindquarters represents the visceral encounter with the shadow. The encounter with the shadow is the first doorway to the unconscious and the first step in the individuation process. And the shadow is also associated with a visceral, with a bodily, with what is the part that's usually not seen confronted or acknowledged. And so that would be one way of understanding this picture. And so now let's move then to picture number four. Catching the Ox. And so we see here that the ox herd has a rope around the ox. He's wrangling with it. He's struggling to get it under control. Right? And there's an accompanying verse here that reads, if you want to tame it, you must lay on the whip. And so the traditional understanding here might be that this is the phase of discipline and training and focus in Zen practice. Right? We've glimpsed Buddha nature, but it can easily slip away. Right? We keep on practicing regularly, keeping a tight hold on our tenuous grasp of Buddha nature. And then if we look at this from a Jungian perspective, one way of understanding it might be that this is the confrontation with the unconscious. Right? This is the struggle to come into relationship with that which is bigger than and in some ways more powerful than the ego. Right? That this struggle happens as we're going through the individuation process. Right. Anything else you want to add in any of this, Debashish? 

Debashish: No, I think it's nice to... 

Sara: Okay. I'll just go through it and then we'll get to the meat of it. Meat. That's an interesting choice of word in this presentation. So, alright. So let's move to picture five here. Picture five, Taming the Ox or Walking Side By Side. And so here we see that the ox herd is walking calmly beside the ox. The ox is led by the rope and here in this image the rope is slack. That's really in contrast to the previous image where the rope is taught. Right? There's a struggle. And so the verse here instructs us to pull again and again till it's tame and gentle. Of itself it will follow without any bridle or chain. And so the idea here is that we've finally caught the ox. Right? We... The fruits of our unwavering practice, discipline and focus have paid off and there's less effort needed to be in relationship with it, to be in contact with Buddha nature. But still here even in this image we can't yet let go of the rope. Right? It's liable to wander back off into dust and desire. And it being the ox. And so in the Jungian and some of the Jungian interpretations this walking with a slack rope is the beginning of the coniunctio. And that is the joining of the conscious ego with the unconscious or the self. Right? Let's look now at picture six. In picture six Riding the Ox Home. We see the ox herd riding the ox looking very carefree. No rains at all. Playing the flute. And even the ox looks like he's enjoying himself. Right? And so here the verse reads that we call you but you won't turn around. We catch at you but you won't be tied down. And so this is the phase in the practice where there's no turning back. We can't unknow Buddha nature. We can't so easily fall back into delusion. We fully tame the ox and made it our own. And we're here really beginning to merge with and become one with Buddha nature. And again in a Jungian understanding this would be another sort of deepening of the coniunctio. The identification with the self and the unconscious. So now as we move to picture seven, The Ox Forgotten, sometimes read as The Ox Transcended. And so here we see the man is alone. Presumably he's at home because he in the previous image ridden the ox home. And he's ridden the ox home to the ground of his own true nature. And we see that in this image the man is, his hands are in perhaps what looks like prayer gazing out at the moon in the wilderness. And so here the traditional understanding is that there's a deepening of the realization of non-duality. There's a disappearance of the ox because we don't need the ox anymore as a concept as a teaching tool. We don't need to think about Buddha nature as an idea that's separate from ourself. Buddha nature is not an idea. It's not a concept. It's something that I am. And so here yeah I think that's actually all I want to say there. And so this is again another form of deepening coniunctio in the Jungian process. So then we move on to picture eight. The Ox And The Man Out Of Sight. And here we have the depiction of Enso. And Enso is an empty circle that represents sunyata or the great death. And this is a symbol for Buddhist emptiness. And so here in a way this is really the culmination of the practice. It's the complete realization of non-duality. There's no ox. There's no self. There's no search. There's no awakening. There's no delusion. There's no desire. There's no aversion. And so this circle also represents the fullness and the completion of vast emptiness. And there are actually versions of the ox herding series that end here. And when we think of this in terms of the Jungian individuation process, we can think of this perhaps as the ego emptying itself so that it can be in service of the self. The prostration of Job as he trembles before Yahweh, which is one of the traditional symbols of the individuation process. That prostration kind of being a real ripening of the ego's relationship to the self, allowing itself to be self-centric as opposed to egocentric. And then you have picture nine, Returning to the Source. And here we see a nature scene. We don't see the man. We don't see the ox. We just see nature. And so this is the phase where we come back into the world of form, infused with our contact with emptiness, infused by our merging with Buddha nature. But we don't remain in a sort of world denying and transcendent state. But instead we become world affirming here. And this also expresses the understanding that emptiness is identical to the 10,000 things. It contains the 10,000 things. They're all expressions of emptiness. And so, and what I I don't, I think there are theorists who will disagree with me here, but what I would say is that this image actually goes beyond what Jung thought possible in the individuation process. Jung really believed that the conscious self could never take the perspective of the big S Self. It could never really, the Self gazes upon the whole psyche, the consciousness and the unconscious. And Jung thought that we could never, we could only come into service with, we could come into relationship with the Self. We could never see through the eyes of the Self. And what I would say is that in picture nine, in a way, we are actually taking the Self's perspective. That Zen Buddhism goes a step beyond Jungian individuation and says actually, no, we can. We actually can see through the eyes of the wild Self. And I'll get more into that in a little bit as well. And then finally, in picture 10, entering the city with bliss bestowing hands, we see an image of this round-bellied, hairy, bare-chested monk. And this is a, you know, thought to be a depiction of Budai, or the laughing Buddha, who was, I think, a 10th century monk who was said to wander freely through the villages offering treats and gifts to children. And so what this really is here is that this is the kind of culmination of the return. This is the return to the world out of emptiness of one's own free will. And this is also in some ways the fulfillment of the Bodhisattva vow, right, that we return to the world out of emptiness in order to awaken others to end suffering. And you can see that the Budai is not afraid to get his hands dirty, right? At this stage, dirty and clean are one. Delusion and wisdom are one. There's no need to stay immaculate. I would say that when we're thinking about the Jungian individuation process, this is really that stage when the ego has come into a conscious relationship to the self. So I'm going to stop there in terms of the traditional understandings. And I think I want to pivot now and just talk a little bit about this, these images from an ecological and a post-human lens. Yeah. 

Debashish: So Sara, even before you do that, I think it's nice to acknowledge that you've actually looked at so many interpretations, even of the Zen teachers who've looked at these images. And there's a degree of ambiguity there, is there not? I mean, just like you pointed out with the taming of the ox, you know, image four, right? It's the fourth image. There's some different ways of looking at that, is there not? I think maybe acknowledging that, can you talk a little bit about that? 

Sara: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it is important to note that even though I kind of went through some of the traditional understandings, there's by no means kind of one orthodox interpretation of these images. Even, you know, many Zen teachers will even give multiple interpretations within one explanation. And even in the verses themselves, actually, there's really ambiguity. I mean, in one of the verses, you know, there's reference to the need to whip and tame the ox. And then in the next line, it says, the ox is wilder than ever. He will not be tamed, you know. And so I think that these verses really invite an opening up. 

Debashish: And then you also mentioned that some versions end with the enso, right? The next two images, I think three images, right, after that are sort of missed out. Yeah, two images after that are missed out. And in this particular case, this deck, the Shubun does, you have these two. And in a way, that too talks about different interpretations, right? If you end with the enso, to some extent, you're talking about nirvana, which takes you out. And there's no return. It's almost like the void without any relation. It's a transcendence. You are free, but what happens to the world? 

Sara: Yes, absolutely. I mean, and I think that one of the important teachings in Zen is this sort of movement between emptiness and form. And so I think that by sort of resting up in the cave and the mountain, we miss out on the other side of awakening, which is in the 10,000 things, but also, of course, then there's a way that we're abandoning the world, leaving the world behind, just sort of in some ways taking advantage of this experience. 

Debashish: And then I think what was really also very interesting is you pointed to this picture nine and you said in some ways it goes beyond Jung's idea of individuation, because you're actually seeing through the eyes of the unconscious. And I think that's a really important point, because it has to do with, again, with the human and with modernity. Because, and you know, this whole notion of how far can we go in modern consciousness, the idea of the human, which we find philosophically, for example, with Kant, right, is that the thing in itself can't be known. We can always approach it. We can approach it, but our understanding of things is a conditioned understanding. So, this question, can we actually know things as they are? This is really, in a sense, what's being fielded over here, if we look at it from that point of view. And it challenges our limitations, the limitations of our present understanding on which we've built our civilization, really. I mean, it's not just an individual sort of notion, but our entire civilization is built on this idea that there is a hard line dividing us from nature. And the best we can do is to tame it, to turn it to our advantage, or even to try to ameliorate its kind of ecology and state. But I think this is going one step beyond and saying we can actually come to oneness with nature. Is it not? 

Sara: Yeah, thank you. I love the way you put that. And I think that, you know, as you point out, like Kant and Jung kind of coming from this Western understanding come in with this idea that this, the thing in itself, or nature, can never be known is because they themselves aren't able to transcend kind of the limits of their human-centric ways of knowing, the limits of sort of human-linguistic membrane that sort of encloses them. Right? And so, and I think what partly what some of the nature images in Zen and these images also invite us into is to go beyond that way, that form of understanding to see through the eyes of nature itself. 

Debashish: Which is such a critical question today because we are on the verge of this ecological disaster, one may say, with our civilization. And the real question is after trying so hard to master nature, to understand nature, to build simulations of nature, we are at a point where nature is just not kind of being tamed. 

Sara: Not cooperative. 

Debashish: Yeah, just like that fourth image. So the question is, can we go further? And I think this image set is giving us an answer to that question, which really has to do with our times from if we read it that way. Which is the way you read it, right? So tell us a little bit about that. 

Sara: Yeah, yeah, so great. So I'd love to just, that was such a great introduction. I'd love to go back into the images once again from this new perspective. And so I think some of what I do is I go through these images again is to go through them and kind of carry out what I would call an ecological critical deconstruction. And what that means is that I'm going to be amplifying some elements of these images and maybe the verses as well that have been marginalized and overlooked. And what I really want to do is, as Debashish mentioned, is to direct attention to the metaphor of domestication and direct attention to the ox itself. I struggle, I say it even though I don't want to because we don't really know if the ox is a he or she here. You know, the Chinese character for ox in this case could be either gender. And so what we're doing here is not seeing the ox just as a symbol or tool we use to help us awaken, but which in a way is, I would say is not true to the spirit of Zen. It's distancing, it's conceptualizing. And so what I'm doing here is just helping this image come alive, really having us turn towards this full body, grass breath heaving creature that comes through in these images and kind of asking the question like how does this tension between wildness and domestication, the human and nonhuman in these images kind of relate to the process of enlightenment or individuation? Also how does it kind of relate to what you're speaking to, this collective reorientation towards nature that we're being called to embody? And so before I go through that, I want to just define this term I'm going to use as I go through these images, and that's the term wild other. This is borrowed from Bill Plotkin. And I'm seeing, and I'll sometimes name the ox as a wild other as I go through these images. And the way that Bill Plotkin thought of a wild other is something that we can't possess, assimilate, or comprehend, at least using our normal modes of perception, our everyday modes of perception. And so the numinous, the divine, Buddha nature, these would be all in a way forms of wild others. The numinous is beyond which we can encompass. It's something that we can't possess. It's something that we feel awe, we tremble before it because it's bigger than us and it doesn't speak the language of separating consciousness. And another kind of category of beings that I would consider wild others would also be nature and animals. That in some ways, nature and animals, despite how much we try to domesticate, we try to encompass, we try to extract from them, there’s something about - if you’ve ever looked into the eyes of an animal - there’s something about an animal that we can’t ever, that we feel, at least with our normal modes of kind of apprehension, that we feel we can't ever fully understand and possess. We can't ever predict exactly what it's going to do, exactly what's going on inside of its psyche. And then finally, I'm also going to use the term wild other to refer to parts of the self, parts of the self that feel untamed and unruly, parts of the self that we don't seem to be able to get under control. So, without further ado, let's go back to picture one once again, Searching For The Ox. And so, you know, we see here the ox is, sorry, there's no ox. The man is alone in the wilderness, right? He's searching, the beginning of the spiritual journey. And so, what I think we see here in a way is the way that the human has really sort of set himself up in opposition to nature. The human sees nature as an illusion, as something to use, as maybe a waste of space, something to be subdued, dominated, controlled. And now that this kind of illusion of mastery over nature has been achieved, what many of us experience is actually a great yearning for something that's been lost. And this comes through in a sort of nostalgia and romanticization of pre-civilization, of untouched nature. And this sort of, I think, in a way, sort of illustrates this yearning for the wild other, this yearning for our original wholeness that drives the wilderness journey. And there's a parallel here. And the parallel is, along with this alienation from nature, there's been an alienation from wild otherness within the self. And so, there's a parallel alienation from the sensual body, from the instincts, from parts of the self that aren't useful, for parts of us that don't really conform so well into society, that don't make sense, that resist being enclosed within language. And that these are the parts that I think are, that contain the memory of minerals and trees and animals, that contain the seeds of the universe. And we've lost contact with these parts of us that are really most intimate. We've, in some ways, optimized them away. And so, this search in the wilderness journey for Buddha nature is taking place. But I think it's important to notice that we're looking for Buddha nature in its non-human form, in the form of an ox. I think the choice of this form is important. And even in the verse, there's reference to separation from the beastly. And so, what this shows us is that our wholeness depends on reuniting with a wild, wayward, non-human animal that we eventually recognize as ourselves. But as we see in this image, we don't recognize it yet. Nature is still, we're lost in the wilderness. Nature is still dense. It's mysterious. And there's an accompanying verse to this image that reads, no sight of the ox, just the empty shrilling of cicadas. And I think this is something that really touches me about that line, just the empty shrilling of cicadas. And it strikes me that he's not able to, well, the emptiness, on one hand, really speaks to the alienation of the seeker and this stage of the journey. And that he's alienated from hearing the call of cicadas as teaching, hearing the call of cicadas as a wild language that he can understand. To him, still it's empty. And so then we move then to picture two. And maybe I'll say a few words and maybe you want to even add on here a little bit, Debashish, if you'd like. Or do you want to start? 

Debashish: No, I think you go through it. 

Sara: Okay, sounds good. All right. So, in this scene, even though there's no ox yet, there is the ox heard has discovered tracks and footprints. And I think the accompanying verse here is very important. And one of the lines reads, the whispering pines teach the salvation of sentient beings. An old pine speaks intrinsic wisdom. And so what we see here is that the natural world is becoming more decipherable. It's in some ways acquiring sentience for the ox heard, whereas the natural world in the previous verse was empty. The sound of cicadas was shrill. Here, the old pine is teaching, right? And even it says, a mysterious bird toys with the truth. And so here I think there's a way that the language of the wild other reaches us in a way it didn't in the last image. And I don't know if there's anything you want to add there, Debashish. 

Debashish: No, I think… 

Sara: That's good? Okay. Okay, so then we can move on then. And you know, I'm going to talk now about images three through six, which really all refer to the finding, capturing, the taming, and in a way the mastering of the ox. And traditionally, these next four images are the sort of refer to the phases of initial realization, practice, focus, and discipline. But I'm really going to kind of turn that on its head. And I'm going to say that in the ox herds' quest for contact with the wild other of Buddha nature, he's actually engaged in continuing delusions. He's going about this quest for connection in a familiar way by subduing, by possessing, by controlling. These are all actions of the dividing mind, actions of conquest consciousness. Right? So in a way, so well, even though that's happening, as you'll see as these four images progress, there's a slow softening of this dominating attitude. And so what I kind of want to say is that it's not the ox that's being tamed here, but really it's the ox herd who is learning to make himself more receptive to the ox. He's learning to make himself more attractive to awakening so that awakening will kind of follow him on its own bidding. So now I'll go through the images. That being said, so in picture three, Glimpsing the Ox, again, we have the image here of the ox herd gazing at the hindquarters of the ox. The face of the ox is hidden. And this is, you know, in the traditional understanding, we're seeing true nature directly, not just conceptually, we have a moment of Kensho realization. But I want to ask again, why is he glimpsing at the ox's butt? Like, why is he glimpsing at the back half of the ox? I always found that strange. And so one theory that I have is that he's still participating in kind of dividing and objectifying consciousness. The ox is still an it and not a thou. Without a face, this wild other is still a thing that he can possess. There's no face to look back at him. Just like he can't really hear the teaching of the old pine if he just sees it as lumber. And here he can't really receive the full teachings of the ox as a wild other if he's just gazing at its behind as though it were the section of a rib roast, right? As opposed to kind of allowing the deep liquid eyes of the cow, if you've ever seen those, to kind of teach him directly. And so here, in a way, nature is without a face. It's without sentience. It can't yet fully awaken us when we see it in this way. And then I'll move on to picture four. I have a lot to say here. This is the Catching the Ox. And we see here, again, this is the picture where the ox herd has a rope around the ox. He's fighting, he's struggling, he's wrangling it. And traditionally, the understanding is that this is the phase of discipline, of focus, of really kind of yoking realization to make it stick to us. And so my reinterpretation would be then that this is actually, this image depicts a failed attempt to relate to Buddha nature or the wild other on its own terms. That he's actually still engaged in a kind of grasping, acquisitive type of consciousness, trying to possess it. And I think what this really, to me, speaks to when I look at this image is like the kind of unquenchable thirst many of us have for the lost intimacy with the earth, with the wild ground of our being. You know, this unquenchable thirst that might go into addictions. I think Gabor Maté talks about this, like the realm of the hungry ghosts might go into addictions. But I think in some ways it can unconsciously be acted out through love as a form of domination of nature. Right? Loving nature so much that we want to extract every bit of oil from it. You know, loving nature so much that we want to get so many deer antlers on our wall, you know, so we can just look at it all the time, so that we can eat as many hamburgers as we can. I don't know. Maybe that's going too far. But we're so filled with this desire for the wild ground of being that we seek to possess it. And the oxherd is seeking to possess the ox here. And in a way, he's possessing it in a way that devours it and thus makes it run away and disappear. The ox is not yet attracted to him in this image. And so maybe some of us can relate to that in the way we pursued a romantic partner at some time in our lives, right? Have we ever loved someone in that way, right? Where, you know, where we wanted to devour them. And just how did that go, you know? You know, and so and, you know, and even the meditation hall, I think that can happen, you know. I know for myself sometimes I'll have a moment of kind of, you know, of samadhi, a moment of, you know, a deep realization. Some part of my brain will go, that was great. You just had it. You got it. You got it. You know, and then of course, where does it go? It's gone, right? As soon as that kind of attitude comes in. And I think another way of thinking about this here is that perhaps the man is attempting to yoke and capture the ox because he's experiencing kind of a primal anxiety about his relationship to it. David Abram really talks about this primal anxiety we feel when we really apprehend our vulnerability to our interconnection with and our dependence on nature. This terrifies us. And so perhaps what the man is trying to do here is to kind of bring the ox into his own horizons of experience. He both fears and desires the ox. And so he thinks, I'm going to bring you into my world. I'm going to make you domesticated like me. Not on your own terms. And we do that with pets, don't we, in a way, right? You know, when we look at the proliferation of pets, compared with the rapid disappearance of wild animals, we notice that we really like being able to kind of connect with the deep numinosity of animals on our own terms. Not that there's anything wrong with pets, I love them as much as you may. And so one more thing I want to say about that is I think here that perhaps this grappling, this attempt to possess the ox and make the ox more like him to bring the ox into his own world, you kind of reference that where you talk about kind of bringing the bovine and the equine out from the forest into the human world, it represents this kind of fear of coming undone in contact with wild nature. And actually coming undone is exactly what happens in these images. There's the great death and then there's the resurrection into the nature scene where we're reborn again into a thousand nonhuman pieces. So we'll talk more about that in a minute. All right, so moving on to picture five here, taming the ox. And so in this picture again, we see the ox herd is holding a slack line. The ox is walking calmly beside him. And this is maybe the traditionally the phrase of practice where our discipline has paid off and we don't have to put in so much effort. The ox is now tame and gentle. But I feel really, really dubious of this explanation, honestly. I feel like something isn't adding up for me here. Like, has the ox really been domesticated through use of force, through tethering, through whipping? Is that why the ox is so calm and docile now? Is that really how Buddha nature works? You know, even Dogen says no traps or snares could ever reach it. Has the ox really finally been snared? My alternative explanation is that what this picture portrays is a ripening of the ox herd's consciousness. A softening towards the wild others. The slackened rope shows a softening of this possessive hold on the untamed other. And then the ox, I think, now walks calmly beside him because the ox herd's consciousness is transformed. So the ox now doesn't want to run away as much. And here we see the ox can exist beyond the man's desire from it. And so with that slack rope, he has a little bit of room. Okay, so let's move from there to image six, riding the ox home. I'm not going to say too much about this image. But in this image again, we see the ox herd riding atop the ox. And he's playing his flute. He's allowing himself to be taken home by the ox. And what we see here is that the conscious self has realized that it's no longer the prime mover. He's surrendered to being moved. He's been carried home by the wild other. There's no purposeful human action happening in this image. He really joins the ox in meandering and being wild. And so the Jungian interpretation here is that this is a form of coniunctio. And so what I want to say here is that this coniunctio, this joining of the man and the ox, is actually a kind of post-human coniunctio. The ox herd becomes kind of a centaur here. He begins to speak the language of nature through his flute. And so I think here that this is kind of the beginning of the man's post-human, non-human becoming. All right, now picture seven, The Ox Forgotten. And so here we see the man alone in his home. There's no ox in sight. And the traditional understanding here is that we don't need the symbol of the ox anymore. The man has become Buddha nature. But what I would say here is that this is actually a further ripening of the seeker's consciousness in that he no longer needs to keep the wild ox tethered to him. He doesn't need to tame it or even ride it, even though in the riding of the ox he's surrendering to the ox's rhythms. Riding atop an animal is still in some ways a symbol of mastery. And so here we can think of it perhaps as the ox being let go, allowed to return to the wild, given space no longer being used. And we see the man is kind of in some ways taking a reverential posture towards the nature seen beyond him. And then we go to picture eight, Ox And The Man Both Out Of Sight. This is again the symbol of enso, emptiness, the culmination of practice, non-dual realization. And so here we see, and this is somewhat in line with the traditional understanding, there's really a humbling and an emptying out of the human self before Buddha nature or the wild other. The man here has become a vessel. All divisions are gone here, human and non-human divisions. This is the state that I really see as a state of absolute listening. Of really letting go of that human type of conceptual thinking and a withdrawing of projections to kind of listen beyond the human eyes and ears, listening to the words behind the words, to the other language. And I also think of this as a kind of cosmic egg. This is the gestation chamber that will allow the ox herd to be reborn in another form. And then in image nine, again we see the circular frame contains only nature. There's no human subject here, only wild others. And so what I really see here is that the ox herd has been resurrected and reborn in a post-human plural form. He’s kind of silenced and emptied himself out in the previous image. And here the world really rises up to fill him with its song. And he sees that the self is made up of a polyphony of other than human selves. The wild eye of nature here is seeing through the human eye. And so this is really kind of beyond the recovery of the lost ox, but realizing that I am that. I am nature. I am the lost ox. I am more than what I am. And I am multiple as well. And so what I think the paradox here is what the man once felt alienated from, what he once felt most othered from, he's discovering is the most intimate component of his being. So let's move on here to picture number 10. Entering The City With Bliss Bestowing Hands. Again we see the laughing Buddha, we see Budai here, bare chested, hairy chest, big belly, talking to another individual. And so I think this self here is really reinstating the I-thou relationship. The seeker returns to human form. He doesn't just stay in identification with nature. Identification with the ox. But he needs to return to human form so that he can then double back and have a relationship with nature. Otherwise there's a danger of consuming, devouring,  obliterating it in his identification with it. And I think it's really important to notice here that he's been resurrected as a wild, hairy, animalized self. If you notice in this last image, Budai really kind of looks like the ox. In a way it's like there's no ox in this image, but there's this sort of ox-like man. And so I think that something this is pointing to is that the realized self is a rewilded self. He's led by his belly. He's untamed and wandering, just like that original lost ox was. So I'm going to end there. And there's also some takeaways, but before I go through that I want to also just pass it over to you, Debashish and see in that little time we have left…

Debashish: Yeah, that was wonderful, Sara. Firstly I wanted to pick up on that last image that you talked about. It is fortuitous, you know, because sometimes you think whether we are reading something into it. But I think it's deliberately done because this artist, particularly this artist Shubun, he belongs to a lineage of very famous artists from Japan. His teacher, whose name was Josetsu, he starts this business of actually doing koans in which the human characters become much more animalistic. For example, he has this koan called How To Catch A Catfish With A Gourd. And this is a koan. You actually use a gourd and there's a catfish, but you can't catch the catfish with the gourd. You have to allow the catfish to enter the gourd. It's a receptive process. And the way he portrays it, the person has got this awkward look with the gourd and a huge catfish in the water. And he actually looks like the catfish. He's been portrayed in such a way that he's been standing long enough that he's become the catfish. And that's the point he's trying to make. And I think Shubun is doing something similar because Budai, in a way, is the hybrid, is the one that's reintegrated nature and is reappearing as a human, but with all the animal characteristics that have returned. And also I thought Budai is very appropriate. I think in your article you mentioned that he's being led by his belly. So this leading by the belly, which is in the Japanese sense they call it the hara, the center in the belly, which is the center of the I'd say the kind of integral will, a will that's one with nature. The belly is also like the enso. It's this round belly. It's as if the wholeness of nature is actually drawing him. And he goes wherever he wants to go. But I'd like to also draw attention since you went through this whole thing and talked about the post-human. It's really important to realize the importance of this. And the fact that if you don't end with the enso and actually end with these other images that we see over here, it's a process of increasing receptivity to nature rather than a process of trying to tame nature and bring it into our designs. And I think that's what post-humanism is trying to do. One of the first things that we need to do is change our metaphysics. Because metaphysics, we think metaphysics is a distant thing, but we've absorbed it. We've assimilated it. We all live with certain faith, with beliefs, and these beliefs are in us. So we feel that it's the Kantian metaphysics, for example, that we are human, there's divisions between ourselves and others, other humans, divisions between ourselves and other species. And it's only when we have a metaphysics of monism, but it's really a plural monism. You can have a metaphysics of monism which ends with the enso. In other words, there's a one. I go there and everything gets canceled. That's not going to help us either. We have to go to a plural monism. You use the term plural. When you return, you are one with everything. And I think that's what post-humanism is trying to do in saying we have to change our metaphysics. And so one of the kind of, I think, really leading thinkers in this world is the one who is trying to change the way we think. And so what's post-humanism is Gilles Deleuze. And he is taking this back as far as enlightenment philosophy goes to Spinoza, who is more about monism. There is only one thing, right? Everything is part of that one thing. And so in Deleuze's, you could actually do it just like you did a reading through Jung, and again you're talking about turning things on their head. I think in your article you mentioned Jung saying that the unconscious or darkness has its own light, except he never, like you said, he didn't feel that you could talk through that light. There would always be that distance. But this is the monism that makes you unite with that light. And in Deleuze’s case, if you do a reading through Deleuze, your second image becomes what he calls an apprenticeship to signs. And by that he has a book where he's looking at Proust. And it's called an apprenticeship to signs. And basically what he's saying is that we're reading signs all the time. We’re looking at each other, we understand the conventions that we take for granted, that are common. But once we go beyond those conventions, there is another set of signs that come to us. And that's the cicadas and the, you know, those are the signs that are, we normally, you know, think we can't read. But it’s the language of those signs that really makes us more receptive and ultimately brings us into the unity that this ox herding pictures are, according to your interpretation. And I think that's a change, a transformed way of looking at things that we're all being invited to. I think that's one of the lessons of these ox herding pictures today, if we think of it not as just a teaching tool for individual salvation, but as a way by which we can heal the earth and heal ourselves as well. 

Sara: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Thank you. That was beautiful. And yeah, I think it is, as you say, so important, you know, as kind of as we veer at the edge of climate crisis to which, you know, I will say animal agriculture, particularly bovine, is a significant contributor, to think about like this, as you say, the reinterpretation of sign, how do we solve this crisis? And, you know, there we've gone about it in so many ways, and many of those ways have, you know, involved using the scientific method, using forms of control, using, you know, kind of our normal dividing consciousness, but perhaps in order to really solve this crisis, we need this kind of reorientation that you talked about, a kind of reinterpretation of the sign so that we can actually see out of the eyes of the wild other, we can see through a different perspective with that maybe kind of belly self. Maybe that's the only way we can really see our way through these times. So I think there's a great teaching here in that. 

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