Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
In the midst of the Korean wilderness, a Buddhist master patiently raises a boy while teaching wisdom and compassion through experience and endless exercises.
CrossCutCritic reviewedMay 30, 2025
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring
To You, Who Wandered Far From Innocence and Returned to the Place Where Grace Had Waited All Along
“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” — Isaiah 30:15
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I. To You, Who Once Were Innocent and Did Not Know It Yet
You didn’t know what you had.
The stillness.
The presence.
The days shaped by breath and water and the old monk’s quiet eyes.
You were surrounded by peace—
but too young to understand its weight.
You played.
You laughed.
You tied stones to living things
just to see what would happen.
And the old monk didn’t scold you.
He waited.
He let you watch the struggle.
He let you carry the weight back.
He knew what you didn’t yet:
that some sins cannot be understood until they’re done.
This is how Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring begins—
not with a sermon,
but with a boy learning that life matters
because it can be broken.
If you’ve ever looked back on a time of innocence
and wept for how blindly you walked through it—
then you already know this season.
It is not gone.
It is waiting for your return.
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II. The Desire That Took You Away and the Guilt That Wouldn’t Let You Stay
You felt it rise—
not suddenly,
but like spring water under frozen ground.
Desire.
Longing.
The ache to possess something beyond the stillness of the lake.
She came.
Young, trembling, wounded.
And you touched her
as if she might save you from the silence.
But love quickly became need.
Need became possession.
Possession turned to fear.
And when she left—
or when you left with her—
the quiet you’d once taken for granted
became unbearable.
So you fled.
Not just the monastery.
The memory.
The discipline.
The self that still knew how to be still.
But the guilt followed.
Not loud.
Not punishing.
Just present.
Like the old monk,
watching from the shore.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring doesn’t moralize.
It simply shows how even the gentlest hearts
can be driven by hunger
into ruin.
If you’ve ever chased a love
that unmade you—
or watched your longing become your exile—
then you already know this season.
And you know that guilt does not fade
just because the world keeps turning.
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III. The Return That Did Not Erase Your Past but Transfigured It
You came back.
Older.
Tired.
Marked by choices that could not be undone.
The lake was still there.
The gate still creaked.
The door still opened with the same wooden hush.
But the old monk was gone.
No words.
No farewell.
Just absence.
And so you carried the burden yourself.
You did not demand forgiveness.
You did not explain.
You simply picked up the chisel,
took the brush,
entered the rhythm again.
You turned repentance into ritual.
Every stroke of the blade into a prayer.
Every movement on the frozen lake into an offering.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring tells no tale of dramatic redemption.
It gives us something harder:
a man who returns
not to be restored—
but to become the silence he once fled.
If you’ve ever gone back
not to undo your past,
but to make peace with it—
then you already know this transfiguration.
It does not rewrite your story.
It sanctifies the pages you once wanted to tear out.
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IV. The Discipline That Restored What Desire Had Destroyed
You did not try to explain yourself.
There was no confession, no absolution.
Just practice.
Just breath.
Just the weight of the day
measured in small obediences.
You carved the sutras into wood.
Not for the monk.
Not even for God.
But because your hands needed to remember
what your body had forgotten:
that peace is not found—it is made.
Stroke by stroke.
Step by step.
In winter’s silence,
you rebuilt the temple of your own soul.
And when the boy came—
angry, restless, cruel in the way all lost children are—
you did not flinch.
You taught him how to carry a statue up the mountain.
How to tie a stone not to punishment,
but to patience.
You became the man you needed
when you were still a boy.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring offers no miracles.
Only the quiet, cruciform truth
that discipline is how we become whole again
after desire has shattered us.
If you’ve ever chosen to stay in a place of silence
until your hands became your prayer—
then you already know this season.
It is not redemption by fire.
It is redemption by frost.
Slow.
Severe.
Beautiful.
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V. The Stillness That Waited for You All Along
You stayed.
Through the thaw.
Through the ache.
Through the seasons that no longer needed names.
And in time, the water warmed again.
A child laughed.
The boat rocked gently across the surface of the lake.
No one declared your transformation.
No one wrote your story.
But the boy saw your eyes.
And this time, the silence held something different.
Not shame.
Not sorrow.
But stillness.
Not because your past was erased—
but because you had come to dwell inside it
without fear.
You were once the boy who sinned.
Then the man who fled.
Now, you are the monk who watches.
And when the seasons turn again,
you will be the one
who waits.
If you’ve ever learned to live with your story
rather than rewrite it—
if you’ve found peace not by being rescued,
but by remaining—
then you already know this return.
It is not the end.
It is the beginning, again.
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Postscript
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring is not a story.
It is a rhythm.
A liturgy in images.
A gospel written not in words,
but in water and wood and wind.
There is no victory here.
Only return.
No catharsis.
Only presence.
And yet—
this is grace:
not that you are lifted out of the world,
but that the world, when entered fully,
can become holy.
The boy sins.
The man breaks.
The monk stays.
And in staying, becomes whole.
This is the shape of the cross
when carved into the life of a man
who never speaks its name.
There is a God who waits like the mountain.
Who does not chase you down.
Who does not shout.
But when you come back,
He is still there—
in the water,
in the gate,
in the silence.
And He says only this:
“You made it home. You are ready to begin again.”