The 10 Bulls

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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.

 

 

I. The Search for the Bull

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I.                    The Search for the Bull

In the pastures 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.

 

 

 

 

Comment: 

 

 The bull never has been lost.  What need is there to search?  

Only because of separation from my true nature, I fail to find him. 

 In the confusion of the senses I lose even his tracks. 

 Far from home, I see many crossroads,

 but which way is the right one I know not. 

 Greed and fear, good and bad, entangle me.

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 ~ Kakuan

from 10 BULLS

Transcribed by. Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps 

 Illustrated by Tomikichiro Tokuriki

 

II. Discovering the Footprints

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II.                    Discovering the Footprints

Along the riverbank under the trees, I discover footprints!

Even under the fragrant grass I see his prints.

Deep in remote mountains they are found.

These traces no more can be hidden that one’s nose, looking heavenward.

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Comment:  Understanding the teaching, I see the footprints of the bull.  Then I learn that, just as many utensils are made from one metal, so too are myriad entities made of the fabric of self.  Unless I discriminate, how will I perceive the true from the untrue?  Not yet having entered the gate, nevertheless I have discerned the path.

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III. Perceiving the Bull

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III.                    Perceiving the Bull

I hear the song of the nightingale.

The sun is warm, the wind is mild, willows are green along the shore,

Here no bull can hide!

What artist can draw that massive head, those majestic horns?

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Comment:  When one hears the voice, one can sense its source.  As soon as the six senses merge, the gate is entered.  Wherever one enters one sees the head of the bull!  This unity is like salt in water, like color in dyestuff.  The slightest thing is not apart from self.

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IV. Catching the Bull

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IV.                    Catching the Bull

I seize him with a terrific struggle.

His great will and power are inexhaustible.

He charges to the high plateau far above the cloud-mists,

Or in an impenetrable ravine he stands.

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Comment:  He dwelt in the forest a long time, but I caught him today!  Infatuation for scenery interferes with his direction.  Longing for sweeter grass, he wanders away.  His mind still is stubborn and unbridled.  If I wish him to submit, I must raise my whip.

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V. Taming the Bull

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V.                    Taming the Bull

The whip and rope are necessary,

Else he might stray off down some dusty road.

Being well trained, he becomes naturally gentle.

Then, unfettered, he obeys his master.

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Comment:  When one thought arises, another thought follows.  When the first thought springs from enlightenment, all subsequent thoughts are true.  Through delusion, one makes everything untrue.  Delusion is not caused by objectivity;  it is the result of subjectivity.  Hold the nose-ring tight and do not allow even a doubt.

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VII. The Bull Transcended

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VII.                    The Bull Transcended

Astride the bull, I reach home.

I am serene.  The bull too can rest.

The dawn has come.  In blissful repose,

Within my thatched dwelling I have abandoned the whip and rope.

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Comment:   All is one law, not two.  We only make the bull a temporary subject.  It is as the relation of the rabbit and trap, of fish and net.  It is as gold and dross, or the moon emerging from a cloud.  One path of clear light travels on throughout endless time.

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VIII. Both Bull & Self Transcended

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VIII.                    Both Bull & Self Transcended

Whip, rope, person, and bull – all merge in NO-THING.

This heaven is so vast no message can stain it.

How may a snowflake exist in a raging fire?

Here are the footprints of the patriarchs.

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Comment:  Mediocrity is gone.  Mind is clear of limitation.  I seek no state of enlightenment.  Neither do I remain where no enlightenment exists.  Since I linger in neither condition, eyes cannot see me.  If hundreds of birds strew my path with flowers, such praise would be meaningless.

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IX. Reaching the Source

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IX.                    Reaching the Source

Too many steps have been taken returning to the root and the source.

Better to have been blind and deaf from the beginning!

Dwelling in one’s true abode, unconcerned with that without –

The river flows tranquilly on and the flowers are red.

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Comment:  From the beginning, truth is clear.  Poised in silence, I observe the forms of integration and disintegration.  One who is not attached to “form” need not be “reformed.”  The water is emerald, the mountain is indigo, and I see that which is creating and that which is destroying.

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X. In the World

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X.                    In the World

Barefooted and naked of breast, I mingle with the people of the world.

My clothes are ragged and dust-laden, and I am ever blissful.

I use no magic to extend my life;

Now, before me, the dead trees become alive.

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Comment:  Inside my gate, a thousand sages do not know me.  The beauty of my garden is invisible.  Why should one search for the footprints of the patriarchs?  I go to the market place with my wine bottle and return home with my staff.  I visit the wineshop and the market, and everyone I look upon becomes enlightened.

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If It Be Your Will

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If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will
If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

If it be your will. 

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~ Leonard Cohen

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPqAcV_aJvg&feature=related
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the creations of sound

If the poetry of X was music,

So that it came to him of its own,

Without understanding, out of the wall

Or in the ceiling, in sounds not chosen,

Or chosen quickly, in a freedom

That was their element, we should not know

That X is an obstruction, a man

Too exactly himself, and that there are words

Better without an author, without a poet,

Or having a separate author, a different poet,

An accretion from ourselves, intelligent

Beyond intelligence, an artificial man

At a distance, a secondary expositor,

A being of sound, whom one does not approach

Through any exaggeration.  From him, we collect.

Tell X that speech is not dirty silence

Clarified.  It is silence made still dirtier.

It is more than an imitation for the ear.

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He lacks this venerable complication.

His poems are not of the second part of life.

They do not make the visible a little hard

To see nor, reverberating, eked out the mind

On peculiar horns, themselves eked out

By the spontaneous particulars of sound.

We do not say ourselves like that in poems.

We say ourselves in syllables that rise

From the floor, rising in speech we do not speak.

~ Wallace Stevens

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You have wakened not out of sleep

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You have wakened not out of sleep,

 but into a prior dream, 

and that dream lies within another, 

and so on, to infinity, 

which is the number of the grains of sand. 

The path that you are about to take is endless, 

and you will die before you have truly awakened.

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~ Jorge Luis Borges, from 'The Writing of the God'

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When a person dies, there arises this doubt:

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When a person dies, there arises this doubt:

"He still exists," say some; "he does not,"

Say others...

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The joy of the spirit ever abides, 

But not what seems pleasant to the senses.

Both these, differing in their purpose, prompt

Us to action.  All is well for those who choose

The joy of the spirit, but they miss

The goal of life who prefer the pleasant.

Perennial joy or passing pleasure?

This is the choice one is to make always.

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The first leads one to Self-realization;

The second makes one more and more 

Estranged from one's real Self...

Ignorant of their ignorance, yet wise 

In their own esteem, those deluded men

Proud of their vain learning go round and round

Like the blind led by the blind.

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It is but few who hear about the Self.

Fewer still dedicate their lives to its

Realization.   Wonderful is the one

Who speaks about the Self.  Rare are they

Who make it the supreme goal of their lives.

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~ Katha Upanishad

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a place to which you can go

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The mythologist Joseph Campbell was asked by an interviewer how a regular person could preserve his sense of the mythic when so many feel too besieged by the claims of every day living. He said,

 You must have a place to which you can go, in your heart, in your mind, or your house, almost every day, where you do not know what you owe anyone or what anyone owes you. You must have a place you can go to where you do not know what your work is or who you work for, where you do not know who you are married to or who your children are.

~ Joseph Campbell

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