I lived in Korea for two years and have travelled much of Asia...what is interesting about north-eastern Asia is the depiction/murals on the sides of temples of the Herder and the Ox. I always knew there was more meaning to it that I knew myself and recently came across a great explanation that I will share here:
It compares the Buddhist practitioner's quest for enlightenment to a herder's search to find his Ox:
1. "seeking the ox": lost in samsara, but pulled toward higher truth.
2. "finding the tracks": listening, studying, seeing the path
3. "first glimpse of the ox": meditation gives the beginnings of prajna (wisdom)
4. "catching the ox": a deeper grasping of the kleshas (greed, delusion, and anger); recognition of the hindrances of selfhood.
5. "taming the ox": beginning to breakthrough satori (enlightenment) experiences.
6. "riding the ox home": complete satori (enlightenment)
7. "ox forgotten, self alone": experiencing the freedom of satori (enlightenment)
8. "both ox and self forgotten": experience of ultimate emptiness, even of tradition itself
9. "returning to the source": seeing the natural world as a sphere of innate enlightenment
10. "entering the market with helping hands": the Bodhisattva ideal as the final vocation after enlightenment.
p79 - Buddhism (Reference Guide) Kevin Trainor - General Editor.
Often times you will see these depictions painted in a clockwise fashion around the outside of a temple.
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