Page 16 - Autumn 20

Ten Ox-herding pictures by Peter
In a meeting of a group of Buddhist friends recently (by Zoom of course) I was reminded by our teachers of the “ten Ox-herding Pictures”, which depict the spiritual progression of a Zen student. the author is said to be
a Zen master of the Sung Dynasty known as Kaku-an Shi-en belonging to the Rinzai school. He also wrote poems and introductory words for each picture.
I believe the stages are universal, and apply to anyone seeking their inner truth, wherever they
may find it, but I also believe they are relevant to our personal progression in learning homeopathy; they certainly resonated with my own journey, so I though
it might be interesting to look at them from a homeopathic perspective. the pictures I am using were painted by Shubun, a Zen priest of the fifteenth century. the original pictures are preserved at Shokokuji, Kyoto. He was one of the greatest painters in black and white in the Ashikaga period. I plan to take them one at a time and see how it goes. Instead of the original commentaries I will try and add a haiku for each one. I hope you may find it interesting and I don’t find I am being too ambitious!
Picture 1: ‘Searching for the Ox’
this picture shows a boy lost in the wilderness, searching for the ox (which we can interpret as a meaning for life). Buddhist philosophy centres around the feeling that life is unsatisfactory and aims to provide an understanding
and
a
means to
rectify this. the
commentary says the boy has been led out of his way by delusion. He is depicted in a beautiful place – everything is perfect, but there is something missing (the bull) and he doesn’t know where to look. this reminds me of the situation in which many of us find ourselves a few years after we have entered the profession. Everything is OK; we know that we can deal with most patients that come
into our practice, and we know which medicines to use. But there is a feeling of un-satisfactoriness, a feeling that there must be something more to veterinary medicine, something beyond the daily round of antibiotics, corticosteroids and such. But we don’t know where to look. Faced with this situation, many veterinarians pursue a specialist qualification; others go more deeply into the financial side of practice or get involved in the politics. A small number of us start to look for other ways to treat
our patients.
For my part, I was in partnership in a mixed practice in Australia. We had just paid off the loan and were about to bring in a decent salary. Each summer we saw a huge number of allergic skin diseases in dogs – we called this the ‘Depo-medrol season’ and bought in huge stocks of the drug (methylprednisolone), on bulk discount, in preparation. this more than anything led me to feel dissatisfied – there must be more to this life and this profession and better ways of treating these patients. But
where should I look?
Everything’s fine treatment for all diseases
But
(Something’s missing)
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Gregory, UK