I don't know what this really means — Wosret

I have this creeping feeling that I just ain't wise. — Akanthinos

Truer words have never been typed. — Buxtebuddha

line in shipwreck by ubiquitous synergy seekers — Wosret

Introductory books on Zen usually contain ten or six drawings called 'Ox-herding Pictures',
depicting a story of taming an unruly, wild bull. These were drawn by some Zen masters of old,
notably by Kaku-an and Jitoku of the twelfth century. The bull represents the mind and the
herdsman who tames the bull is the yogi, the person engaged in meditation.
It is significant that this simile of the taming of the bull goes back to very ancient times.
Discussing the import of the expression 'arannagato va rukkhamulagato va sunnagaragato va',
'gone to a forest or gone to the root of a tree or gone to an empty (quiet) house (room)',
occurring in the Satipatthana sutta, the Pali commentaries elaborate:
This bhikku's mind (i.e. the meditator's mind),/which was for a long time scattered among such
objects as visible forms (rupadisu arammanesu) does not like to enter into the path (street)
of a subject of meditation (kammatthana-vithi), but runs only into a wrong path like a chariot
yoked to an untamed (unruly) bull. Just as a herdsman, who desires to break in an untamed calf
grown up with all the milk it has drunk from the untamed (mother) cow, would remove it from
the cow, and having fixed a big post on a side would tie the .calf to it with a rope; and then
that calf of his, struggling this way and that, unable to run away, may sit down or lie down
close to the post; in the same way, this bhikku (i.e. the meditator), who desires to tame the
villainous mind grown up as a result of drinking for a long time of the pleasures of
sense-objects such as visible forms, and having gone to a forest or to the root of a tree or
an empty house, should tie it to the post of the object of the presence of mindfulness
(satipatthanarammanatthamba) by the rope of mindfulness (sati-yotta). Then the mind of his,
even after it has struggled this way and that, not finding the object previously indulged in,
unable to break the rope of mindfulness and to run away, sits down and lies down close to that
same object (of mindfulness) by way of neighbourhood concentration and attainment
concentration (upacarappanavasena).
Hence the ancients said:
Just as a man would tie to a post
A calf that should be tamed,
Even so here should one tie one's own mind
Tight to the object of mindfulness.

In this commentarial simile the herdsman fixes a post and ties the calf to it, whereas the
bull in the Zen pictures is tethered to a tree.
The two commentaries where this simile occurs are the Pali translations made by Buddhaghosa
Thera in the fifth century A.C. of the original Sinhala Commentaries which go back to the
third century B.C. The Ancients (porana), anonymous great masters, referred to in the passage
quoted above (and in numerous other places in the Pali Commentaries).

know exactly what this means. You're worried about all sorts of shit you can't control so you're trying to assure yourself that you're doing exactly what you ought to be doing and that you're exactly in the right place and you're using as evidence of this some completely irrelevant things that you're trying to convince yourself are important, but you know deep down they're really not, and this is so not what you want to hear.

It's all self deception to alleviate your sense of hopelessness. It's distressing to me. I can't imagine what it's like to you. — Hanover

Yeah so I just want mundane things, good relationships, low stress, and family that I can keep from imploding. — Wosret