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7. The Ox Transcended



Astride the Ox, I reach home.
I am serene. The Ox too can rest.
The dawn has come. In blissful repose,
Within my thatched dwelling
I have abandoned the whip and ropes.
 
It's 9:00 in the evening. Stars twinkle in the distance as the light fades and the world is enveloped in a soft velvety purple darkness. The dishes are done. The last email has been attended to. There are no more obligations to fulfill. The bustle of the town dies down. A blissful silence descends in the house. It’s time to rest after the day’s labors. I light a candle. I sit down on the cushion and gaze at the small flickering yellow flame. I close my eyes to block out its tiny movements, craving an absolute absence of activity. It takes several minutes for the stillness of the space to seep into my being, for the breath to steady and the mind to quieten. I, too, perhaps not in a thatched dwelling, am in blissful repose!
 
Repose—a literary or formal term for the state of being at rest; also, a state of mind, free from anxiety.  
 
The repose alluded to in this verse, one assumes, is not the serenity that descends at the end of a day when it is time to rest. The ox herder’s repose isn’t the result of the absence of physical and mental activity but, perhaps, the ease that arises from the absence of struggle.
 
That “blissful repose” happens when the pressures of daily life are in abeyance, on a lazy Sunday morning, on vacation, in a retreat setting, can give rise to the misconception that repose is a function of withdrawal from engagement in the world. But the image that accompanies this verse suggests otherwise. 
 
It’s not the end of the day, it’s early morning. Dawn is breaking over mist-wreathed mountains. The ox herder is awake, kneeling, hands in gasshō, contemplating the rising sun. Of course, this liminal time before the world awakens is also conducive to a conditional peace. But here the sunrise is the dawning of the awareness witnessed by the ox herder’s rapt attention. It is as if the ox herder is privy to this exchange between the sun and a saint:
 
The sun hears the fields talking about effort
and the sun
smiles,
and whispers to me,
“Why don’t the fields just rest, for
I am willing to do everything
to help them grow?”
Rest, my dears,
in prayer.
— Catherine of Siena
 
At some point in practice we stop tilting against the ego. The turbulence of the mind ceases to be of interest. We apprehend that the answer lies neither in the mind’s subjugation nor in the resolution of the content it presents as problems. A deepening practice of meditation reveals the power of Awareness to summon us to Presence. How else do we “know” that we’ve lost the thread of the count? There is a growing willingness to be carried by the subtle current of life, to be directed by this mysterious force that calls us home. Fidelity to life, to awareness of Awareness, materializes as a practice of constant devotion. 
 
Pick up the recorder.
Put yourself in the queue.
Come back to the breath.
Time to interview?
The assignment this week is…
 
Each of these gentle nudges becomes an opportunity to recognize the Beloved’s presence, reminders that seeker and sought are inextricably bound. In Rumi’s words:
 
The thirst in our souls
is the attraction put out by the Water itself.
We belong to It, and It to us.
 
And so the direction of the search shifts from seeking to being sought. We let go the struggle, the whips and the rope. The ox ceases to be in the picture. If it wanders in, we accept awareness of its presence as the guiding light of Love, allowing its radiance to suffuse our being with Presence. 
 
And blissful repose follows.

Gasshō
ashwini