The Ten Bulls

By Haikon

In the twelfth century, the Chinese Zen master Haikon drew and wrote this wonderful parable of the ten bulls as an aide to enlightenment for Zen students. Zen enlightenment is as consciousness, and knows not the concepts of time, but a man seeking enlightenment must tread within time - and so Zen for him must also recognise that it is through progressive steps of awareness that he gets closer to enlightenment.

The illustrations are contemporary, but we don't know where they originally came from to be able to credit them.