十牛圖頌並序, 1278

This "ode and preface to the picture of ten cows" was written by zen master kuo'an in the southern song dynasty. The content is based on the theme of cattle herding, with ten pictures (looking for cattle, seeing traces, seeing cattle, getting cattle, herding cattle, riding cattle home, forgetting cattle and saving people, forgetting both people and cattle, returning to the origin, and hanging hands after entering the temple), which means that zen cultivation of mind and enlightenment is like herding cattle. A preface (speech), a verse (poem), and a picture. This scroll was painted around the first year of hong'an in japan (1278) and is now in the collection of the metropolitan museum of art. Since the song dynasty, there have been many poems that use cattle herding as a metaphor for the process of cultivating taoism. Among them, zen master kuo'an's "ode to the ten cows" is the most well-known and widely circulated. The cow here refers to our heart that is difficult to control and subdue. Through the ten processes of herding cows, the practitioner's training process from finding the heart, taming, enlightening, and saving all living beings is explained in sequence. "ten ox" is a metaphor; "picture" is the description of the picture; "ode" is to use verses to explain the meaning of the ten ox diagram and the principles involved. One day after wuyin zhongqiu in hong'an, it was written on the back of ten niu pictures title of the volume: a picture of ten cows of a monk who lives in kuo'an, liangshan, dingzhou kuo'an (shiyuan) zen master/monk lived around the 20th year of shaoxing (1150), emperor gaozong of the southern song dynasty, and belonged to the yangqi sect of the linji sect. Date: 1278.