The text comes from the book Riding the Ox Home by John Daido Loori. It is an introduction to the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures, a series of traditional Zen paintings and poems that illustrate the stages of spiritual development. The text explains each stage of the journey, from the initial search for the ox, which represents the True Self, to the final stage of "Entering the Marketplace," where the seeker returns to the world, having realized their own inherent Buddha-nature.