Seeing Traces of the Ox

Once when the great God Siva sported with his equally great consort, the goddess Parvati, she covered Siva's eyes with her hands. Suddenly, the whole universe was plunged into darkness, for when Siva's eyes are closed, the universe is like a black hole with no light anywhere-except for the hidden fire in Siva's third eye that always threatens the destruction of worlds. Hindu deities are allseeing and are said never to close their eyes. From the near disaster of Siva's and Parvati's play, it is a good thing that they do not; the well-being of the world depends on the open eyes of the gods.1 This essay takes its first clue from the importance of seeing in the Hindu religious Way, but it is not about how Hindu gods or how Hindus God. The clue is this: it is not only the gods who must keep their eyes open; so must we, in order to make contact with them and our deepest selves and in the process reap their blessings and secrets. Keeping our eyes open is called darsan, and this essay is about how to keep our eyes open to the reality of religious pluralism so that we might reap new possibilities for creative transformation. But this essay is also about how scripture both hinders and enhances seeing. How does scripture-any scripture-help us or hinder us from seeing? Is there some unity, mostly glimpsed darkly through our scriptural glasses, over and beyond what any scripture or tradition leads us to expect to see? Here, my second clue is from Zen Master Hakuin Zenji's (1685-1768) comment on the second of the Ten Ox Herding Pictures, which also provides the title of this essay.2 It is by the aid of the scripture and study of the teachings that we begin to comprehend the Ox of religious pluralism. That is, we see the traces of the truth of a Religious Way's faith and practice-ours or someone else's-lurking behind scripture and teachings. Or, as Master Hakuin has

Historical and Architectural Studies · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Indian History and Philosophy