Abstract: “Ox-Herding” is an important metaphor in Buddhism.From the middle Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty,it became a common phrase used by Zen masters to express Zen mind.Ox Herding Pictures and its ode were widely circulated in the Song Dynasty.Among them,Pu Ming and Kuo Ans versions had a profound influence.Their Ox Herding Pictures generated an ideographic system of images with “ox-human” as the core.Black ox evolved into the white,the relationship between ox and people changes from confrontation to “forgetting the other” and “alone in the light”,and then life shows its “original face”;Ox Herding Pictures and their odes construct a unique Ox-Herding-realm,one painting one realm,and the whole creates the final “sunyata state”;“sunyata” turns into Ensō,that is,the “○” symbol.This image means that life is “original nothing”,which is a supreme aesthetic existence;Ox Herding Pictures and its ode and the ideas carried by it have been widely spread in countries such as Japan and Germany,exerting a profound influence in the cross-cultural perspective.

Key words: ox, ox herding, sunyata, Ensō