A very meaningful piece and I thought it's nice to share it here. Originally it was only the first eight woodcuts where most spiritual paths leave us. The wisdom of the later Zen masters produced the last two final pictures in the sequence to make the ten. (Excerpts from "Avalanche" by Dr. Brugh Joy.) And personally I think it has to be 10 - a nice round, complete whole number, which makes sense.
A nice commentary for these pictures can be found at:
http://www.jaysquare.com/ljohnson/ox-herding.html and
http://www.emoyeni-retreat.com/id99.htm.
Along side this woodcuts there is also another nice Zen saying worth mentioning, which has been nicely discussed by the famous Jungian Marie-Louise von Franz in her book "Alchemy". I quoted here:
"It is what the Zen Master said: "At the beginning of the process water is water and mountains are mountains and streams are streams" - that is the taste of a good steak, but for the ego, and that is no good. You have to go into a state where mountains are no longer mountains, streams no longer streams and water no longer water, which means you see them as similes. But at the end of the process mountains are again mountains and that would involve resolidifying the spirit."
"To get stuck in the middle, this way or the other, is bad. The process needs both movements so as not to become destructive, and that is so beautifully illustrated in alchemy: The body has to be spiritualized, and the spirit has to be incarnated, both things must take place."
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