宋朝廓庵的《十牛图》原为佛教禅宗修行阶次的图示：以牧童喻心、牛喻性；不以人驯服牛为终局，甚至亦不确定是人驯牛或牛驯人，将发心修行到证悟解脱的长远历程简化成十个阶段，是禅宗对佛教解脱之道，所谓“明心见性，见性成佛”、追求佛性朗现的修行完满境界的寓释。刘韧正是在这样一个哲思语境中，继续拷问关于生命的一些问题：
人生是否有命运？命运可预知吗？可改变吗？在佛教里面，生死是相对的，是一种轮回。时常会觉得某时某地某物都是熟悉的，也都是瞬间的。人、动物、植物，甚至那些看似没有生命的物件都是在互相转换；在这种转换中，不断变化的仅仅是躯壳，而核心恒久不变。这群人，这丛草木已在这个星球上存在了无数年了，我们谁都从未曾真的离去过，只是换了个皮囊重新再来，只是自己未曾记住上一次的生命经历。知觉构建出一个万象的物我世界——粒子、人、宇宙——可能都是梦和幻觉。我们沉浸和迷失在这样一个知觉印象的世界里，而真实世界是无我的。它就存在于眼前，可我们从来都看不到。因为我们几乎无时无刻不在做梦，以为那就是真实和现实的世界。跳出这个知觉所制造的物我二元的存在幻境，来面对一种无我的清净与自由。
在《新十牛图》的重新演绎中，她自己就成了那个表征“自心”的牧童，来对应表征“自性”的牛，从而来经验使“心”和“性”得成一体的回归。有意思的是，当刘韧以现代人的生活经验和理念来模习那种佛家禅思过程的时候，无论在物理的时空上，还是在精神上，都是一种遥远的眺望。这种跨越九百年的模习，在允许她怀疑、批评、寻找、并重新确定自己角色的同时，也成了一场演出。刘韧的《新十牛图》没有选择传统的呈现方式，而是将影像依次直接投射在水面上，像落叶一般轻盈，富有那瞬间的生命，又如水中之月、镜中之花。每隔一时，滴水穿像，影破成幻，且待涟漪退去，平静再来，弹指一挥间，水面泛起的已然是另一幅图画，另一种情境，另一番境界。
注：《十牛图》流传较广的两个版本为宋朝廓庵师远与普明禅师所作，其中，廓庵的《十牛图》保存的更为完整。十牛图的名称依次为：“寻牛”、“见迹”、“见牛”、“得牛”、“牧牛”、“骑牛归家”、“忘牛存人”、“人牛俱忘”、“返本还原”、“入廛垂手”，以图示的形式描写禅者由修行、开悟、调伏业识，终至见性，进而入世化众的心路历程。
“A Decade Long Exposure”The Central Academy of Fine Arts and Chinese Contemporary Photography
Jiang Jiehong
The Ten Ox-Herding Pictures from Kuo Yan in Song dynasty was originally an image of the order of Zen Buddhism practice: a vaquero is a metaphor of heart, an ox is a metaphor of character; the end is not man taming ox, even not giving a certain answer of whether is man taming ox or ox taming man, simplified to ten phases from a long-term process of concentration on Buddhism practice to enlightenment and liberation, is an explaination of Zen and Buddhist liberation, the so-called “Clear your heart and you’ll finaly become one of the buddhas”, an explaination of satisfactory state of practice for the pursuit of the Buddha’s nature. Liu Ren as well keeps torturing questions about life in this certain philosophizing context:
Is there fate for life? Is the fate predictable? Is it changeable? In Buddhism, life and death is relative, is a transmigration. People often feel familiar about sometimes or someplaces or somethings, but the feelings also pass like a blink of an eye. Mankind, animals, plants, even those objects which seem have no life but is still able to interchange with others; in this kind of interchange, is the body that keeps changing, the heart never changes. These people, these grass have been existing on this planet for countless years, none of us has really left, just started all over again in a new body, just oneself never remembered the experience of the prelife. Perception builds an all-inclusive world of objects – atom, mankind, universe – may all be dreams and illusions. We have drowned and lost in this perceptual impression world, the real world is non-object. It exists right in front of your eyes, but we never seen it. Because we dream all the time, thinking that’s reality and true world. Jumping out of this perception made existence illusion of object binary, to face quiet and freedom in a non-object world.
In the new interpretation of “New Ten Ox-Herding Pictures” by Liu Ren, herself becomes the vaquero symbolizes “self-heart”, to match along with the ox symbolizes “self-character”, thereby gets into one of the return from “heart” and “character”. Interestingly, when Liu Ren imitates and learns the Zen process from her life experience and concept of being a modern people, no matter in the physical or spiritual time and space, both are outlooks from a great distance. This nine hundred years of simulation and learning allows her to suspect, to criticize, to search and to relocate the her charactar, meanwhile it has become a play. “The New Ten Ox-Herding Pictures” of Liu Ren did not choose the traditional way of presentation, but projects the images successively on water, slim and graceful as if falling leaves, full of moments of life, as well as a moon shadow in the water, flowers in the mirror. After an every certain moment, water dripping through the image and becoming a fantasy, waiting for the waves of water disappear and then appear again, in a blink of an eye, there is already a new image reflected in the water, a new context, a new state.
