The mountain does not answer.
It is asked, and asked, and asked again, and the asking is the river that wears the mountain into a different mountain. The mountain does not notice. The mountain does not refuse. The mountain is what is left when refusal and acceptance have both grown tired and gone home.
A student once stood at the foot for forty years. On the fortieth winter, snow took him. The mountain did not grieve. The mountain does not grieve. To grieve is to admit that something has been lost, and the mountain has lost nothing, because the mountain has never tried to keep anything.
The first lesson is the mountain.
The second lesson is that there is no second lesson.
〔 fragment ends here · further leaves not recovered 〕