ZEN IRODALOM ZEN LITERATURE
« Zen index
« Home

Oxherding Pictures Index

Musan's Ten Bulls (심우도)
by
조오현 / 曺五鉉 Jo O-hyeon (1932-) [= Cho O-hyŏn, Cho Oh-hyun]
Buddhist name: 설악무산 / 雪嶽霧山 Seorak Musan
Dharma name: 만악 / 萬嶽 Manak

Translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl (1960-)
(DOC)

Musan Cho Oh-Hyun’s Gathas of Ten Ox Herding
Translated by Lee Chi-Ra
Illustrations: anonymous Korean source
http://www.buddhism.org/board/read.cgi?board=glossary&y_number=46&nnew=1

 


1. SEARCH OF THE BULL

Someone has stamped right and left’s thumbmark on my forehead.
Who has searched for making me?
My direction which can not find out by millions of money with prize money.
An arrow not to be seen with a thousand eyes.
An arrow no to hold even arms reaches to the knee,
A thief gone with an arrow as having taken an axe of slaughter house.

 

 

 

 


2. DISCOVERY OF THE FOOTPRINTS

 

A noted doctor, thief’s mind unknown feeling the pulse for diagnosis.
Without any legal seal, gone away to sell even the sky,
mess with blood trace
obscene conversation
tread water world hidden trace
A sterile woman bankruptcy
The fish that tear a fishing net is catched again.

 



3. PERCEIVING THE BULL

 

A shade standing after taking off the halter shined shadow last night,
To reign a lacerated wound as a first offender of the formless?
I have not paid yet debts of life with born.
Hectic palpitation who is suffering at a grave of the heaven.
To go the outside of a funeral village without bier bearers.
A son who is mother’s guilty love, uncultivating of the life.

 

 

 

4. CATCHING THE BULL

 

Clutched a nose ring without life and a snare,
How many steps wondering to seek the penal code to tie,
Burglar, life crying with cold thunder not being seen dead.
No perforating target returning crying arrowhead,
Tingling electric shock the color of the skin,
Could not dying as being entangled a hinge of this heaven and earth.

 

 

 

5. TAMING THE BULL

 

There is no stone, grass, wasteland of castle,
Have cultivated as like punishment without a plough, a plow share,
Do not know staying out even if the heaven is crying.
It is time to make sealing two letters of name lastly.
It is sea no measuring any sounding lead.
The flesh of a rice field requiring some seeds again returning.

 

 

 

6. RIDING THE BULL HOME

 

Rain stopped as sound of gong, the day water roaring high at the valley sky.
This news loading in full bloom of a laugh,
Wonder where to bury soul at which family tradition at the hometown.
The dead word no reviving in criminal trace living,
The word getting out of running away following live secret selling.
Yang and Yin's carving which can not carve holding a burin.

 

 

 

7. THE BULL TRANSCENDED

 

If I have fine for default of hundred won, good world spiting out,
Even swallowing a hook, is there any hindrance?
A thought has been away what I had lived.
The point of a sword of the world I can go to as closing eyes.
The sword mountain of the world beyond intending to ten million swords.
All selling this world or the world beyond, day by day chewing the cud.

 

 

 

8. BOTH BULL AND SELF TRANSCENDED

 

He he! Ha-ha, eu he he! eu Ho! ho!
Ha-ha! eu ha-ha!
haw-haw!
Psoriasis no medicine spread over the whole body.
Previous life's eyes stuck in the sexagenary cycle counting with hands.
The three thousand world destroyed with a thought and a stick.

 

 

 

9. REACHING THE SOURCE

 

Lived with a sterile woman and to given birth to a butcher,
Meaning living in the rate of interest,
I confined in prison me not trusting myself,
To be raped for several kalpas (eternity), dear me!
I am still a chastity child
A stone lion in wayside bit the top of my foot,
There is no a general to make the world fallen in surprise stand,
Myself getting up and sitting, try touching living!

 

 

 

10. RETURN TO SOCIETY

 

A market having the shoulder money belt
Getting to like fish smell,
To live getting a concubine, throwing away a legal wife,
Wooden shoes, the wooden shoes, still well off after giving one.
To sold a wife for the sum of three hundred won,
To sold two eyes for the sum of three hundred won,
A leper, a real leper who is going to begging for food
a barley field at right angles to the ridges and ditches the sun rising.

 

 

The Ten Ox Herding Pictures are very popular in Korean Buddhism. You can see Ten Ox Herding Pictures on the wall of the Korean temples easily.  The  above poems are the third part of anthology for Manak Gathas. The anthology of Manak Gathas are songs of Enlightenment. Manak means ten thousand mountains. It is Dharma name for Most Ven. Musan Cho Oh-Hyun and Musan is his pen name. Most Ven. Musan Cho Oh-Hyun is Spiritual Master of Baedam (one hundred ponds) monastery at Mt Inner Serak (snow mountain) valley. He is a well known Korean verse Seon poet. He has succeeded to the Seon lineage of Mt. Gaji school (Mt. Seorak Seon School) which is one of the Nine Mountains of the Korean Seon (Chan=meditation) tradition. Seorak Mountain is the third largest mountain in Korea following after Hanlla Mountain and Jirisan Mountain.
Dr. Lee Chi-Ran (Dongguk Buddhist Cheonbop College)

http://www.undv.org/vesak2011/panel4/11LeeChiRanFINAL.pdf

 

KABIR, CHO OH-HYUN, OSHO AND  TEN OX-HERDING PICTURES OF ZEN
commentary by
Dr. ASHOK MAITREYA
http://manak.org.in/wp-content/uploads/pdf-manak/KABIR,%20CHO%20OH-HYUN,%20OSHO%20AND.pdf