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—manas—is heavily laden with ignorance, throughout beginningless kalpas of birth-and-death transmigration it has spent the vast majority of the time undergoing retributive suffering, without the opportunity to be nurtured by the true truth of the mundane and supramundane, and so it has never understood the principle of liberation. Even though the Buddha-dharma is so wondrous, manas remains unaware of it, does not comprehend its meaning, and does not even seek the dharma of liberation; thus the mind consciousness's nurturing of manas is like playing the qin to an ox.

At this time, the mind consciousness must train its own playing technique and patiently continue playing over the long term; eventually one day the ox of manas will come to understand the charm within the melody. The training the mind consciousness must strengthen is such that no matter what tune is played, the ox of manas is guaranteed to understand it—this is extremely difficult and requires painstaking effort. Once the ox understands the tune, things become easy, and cultivation will proceed smoothly and without hindrance.