Playing the Lute to a Cow

Although the melody of the qin is melodious, elegant, and pleasing to the ear, the ox is dull and at first will not understand it, let alone appreciate it. Because the ox of the manas is heavily obscured by ignorance, throughout beginningless kalpas of birth-and-death transmigration it has spent the vast majority of the time undergoing painful retribution, without the opportunity to be steeped in the true truth of both the mundane and the supramundane, and so it has never understood the principle of liberation. Even though the Buddha-dharma is so wondrous, the manas remains unaware of it, does not comprehend its meaning, and does not even seek the method of liberation; the mind consciousness's effort to influence the manas is just like playing the qin to an ox.

At this time, the mind consciousness must train its own playing technique and patiently keep playing over the long term; eventually one day the ox of the manas will come to understand the charm within. The training the mind consciousness must strengthen is to reach the point where, no matter what tune is played, the ox of the manas is guaranteed to understand it—this is extremely difficult and requires painstaking effort. Once the ox understands the tune, things will be easy, and cultivation will proceed smoothly.