The Zen Ox Herding Pictures, sometimes called "In Search of the Missing Ox," are a famous set of images in Zen Buddhism. The pictures are arranged in a progression, and are designed to show the stages of spiritual development in Zen. As far as I know, there is no canonical interpretation of the images (for instance see Zen Training, where the author gives two separate interpretations of the same images), but they are popular objects of commentary within the tradition.

The Ox is often interpreted as one’s Original, True, or Buddha Nature.

The images are as follows: