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The 10 Bulls
By Kakuan
Illustrated by Tomikichiro Tokuriki
Transcribed by Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps
The bull is the eternal principle of life, truth in action.
The ten bulls represent sequent steps in the realization of one’s true nature.
The 10 Bulls is more than poetry, more than pictures. It is a revelation of spiritual unfoldment paralleled in every bible of human experience.
In the twelfth century the Chinese master Kakuan drew the pictures of the ten bulls,
basing them on earlier Taoist bulls, and wrote the comments in prose and verse translated here.
His version was pure Zen, going deeper than earlier versions,
which had ended with the nothingness of the eighth picture.
