Jūgyū(-no)-zu Jap ., lit. ” Ten Oxen Pictures”; representation of the stages of the Zen way or of the different levels of realization of enlightenment shown in ten pictures of an ox (orwater buffalo) and his herder. The ten pictures, usually each painted in a circle, and the accompanying texts-short explanations and poems became popular in Japan in the 1 4th/15th century and have been handed down in many versions. The best-known stems from the Chinese Ch’an (Zen) master K’uo-an Chih-yuan (or Shih-yuan; Jap., Kakuan Shien), fl. 1150. The stages depicted are (1) seeking the ox; (2) finding the tracks; (3) first glimpse of the ox; (4) catching the ox; (5) taming the ox; (6) riding the ox home; (7) ox forgotten, self alone; (8) both ox and self forgotten; (9) returning to the source; (10) entering the marketplace with helping hands. This cycle with accompanying text can be found in Kapleau 1980.
There are earlier versions of the oxherding pictures consisting of five or eight pictures in which the ox is black at the beginning, becomes progressively whiter, and finally disappears altogether. This last stage is shown as an empty circle. “This implied that the realization of Oneness (that is, the effacement of every conception of self and other) was the ultimate goal of Zen. But Kuo-an, feeling this to be incomplete, added two more pictures beyond the circle to make it clear that the Zen man of the highest spiritual development lives in the mundane world of form and diversity and mingles with the utmost freedom among ordinary men, whom he inspires with his compassion and radiance to walk in the way of the Buddha” (Kapleau 1980, 313).
Source: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Shambhala Publications, Inc.
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