The buffalo is a touchy beast. It loves water and has no love for strangers. If it sees water, no matter the yoke, harness or cart, it wades in to cool off, whereas if it sees a stranger, it kicks over the pail and will not let down its milk.
Human life has been described in countless ways: an outing in the vale of tears, a spiritual path, a great journey, subjection and ascent, yet even the materialist holds it to be an unrepeatable opportunity. Life's path has a few clearly recognisable stages, and one of the most poetic summaries of them is the Far Eastern analogy that tells the stages of life and of spiritual striving through the story of the herd-boy, the buffalo and its taming. This series of pictures consists of six to ten steps, but let us keep to a set of eight. Eight is, after all, the higher octave, the number of rebirth, and the goal of a spiritual path through life is perfection, as the circular form of the pictures suggests. Earthly existence is but a brief episode in eternity, and the soul itself is not created at birth, nor does it perish when the body dies.
In the first picture the boy stands uncertain on the bank of a stream, not far from a bridge. He holds a rope in his hand and looks deeply bewildered, as though he had lost his way. He has forgotten his origin, nor can he find the way home. The rope in his hand is a sign that he already senses he needs the help of a beast to get home.
In the second picture the boy sets out in search of the buffalo, and he does find its hoofprints. The buffalo symbolises the human body and psyche, which offer an excellent opportunity for spiritual perfection. Living beings in general follow their instincts, their lives confined to survival, reproduction, finding food and self-defence, but man is a rational being, capable of self-reflection, and so he begins to inquire into the meaning of his own existence.
In the third picture the boy catches sight of the buffalo, then in the fourth bridles it with his rope and turns its head towards the path. Disciplining the beast points to mastery over the body and the mind, and to giving these faculties a spiritual orientation.
In the next picture the boy walks the path, the buffalo already caught, and leads it behind him on his rope. At first spiritual striving is a struggle, and self-discipline, the taming of the wild beast within, is arduous. The soul is willing, but the body and the mind are still unbridled, so the soul pulls the body along, leading it behind, as the boy does the buffalo.
In the sixth picture the boy is already sitting on the back of the animal, which knows its business, keeps to the path and, let us hope, does not wander about but heads straight for home. Still, the boy remains attentive, the rope close at hand, the instrument of discipline, but his flute comes out too, signalling the lightness of the spiritual life, its artistic beauty.
In the next picture safety is now all but complete, the buffalo plods meekly along, and so its master, on its back, can play his flute at ease. This points to the spontaneous, natural stage of the spiritual life, when there is no longer any need to take special care in regulating the body. In this state the power of the pure soul pervades the bodily and mental make-up, so that these too are filled with spirit and, so to speak, know their business.
In the eighth picture the buffalo is no longer to be seen – the soul liberated from physical limits need not take on a body again. Material bodies are born of material desires and deeds, but the soul purified of earthly desires breaks free from the cycle of birth and death. This is the homecoming, the splendid victory of spirituality over lostness.
The eight pictures are eight steps. They speak not of the vale of tears but of drawing near to fullness, and if we study them attentively, we can understand that one step gives birth to the next, and that each is needed to reach the final goal: the body and its discipline just as much as the liberation from bonds that follows. On buffalo-back – homeward.