Herding an Ox


“What are you doing?" asked the master—a question that never got a straight answer from an enlightened Ch'an monk.

"I am herding an ox," the man replied, a metaphorical way of saying he was trying to discipline himself.

"And how," shot back Ma-tsu, "do you go about tending it?"

The monk replied, "Whenever it starts to go to grass [i.e., self-indulgence], I yank it back by the nostrils [the tender part of the great animal]."

To which Ma-tsu admiringly replied, "If you really can do that by yourself, then I may as well retire.”

(From The Zen Experience; Thomas Hoover, https://amzn.to/2JRbO4H)

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 D.: Is it enough if I spend some time in the mornings and some time in the evenings for this atma-vichara? Or should I do it always - say, even when I am writing or walking?

M.: Now what is your real nature? Is it writing, walking, or being? The one unalterable reality is Being. Until you realise that state of pure being you should pursue the enquiry. If once you are established in it there will be no further worry.

No one will enquire into the source of thoughts unless thoughts arise. So long as you think “I am walking,” “I am writing,” enquire who does it.

These actions will however go on when one is firmly established in the Self. Does a man always say, “I am a man, I am a man, I am a man,” every moment of his life? He does not say so and yet all his actions are going on.

(Ramana Maharshi in Talk 596)

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