Zen Ox-Herding Pictures

Zen Buddhism

Ten stages of seeking, finding, taming, and transcending the ox (the Self, the true nature). The eighth picture is an empty circle, the Enso: ox and seeker both forgotten. Wholeness transcends the seeker and the sought, and the path keeps going.

The tenth picture is the return to the marketplace with open hands. Individuation ends not in the monastery but in ordinary life, transformed.

The pattern underneath: The Self. The wholeness that's bigger than your everyday 'I.' If your conscious self is a city, the Self is the entire country.