his former apprentice in a newspaper: He is wanted for the murder of his wife. Foreseeing the apprentice's return, he modifies the teenage monk's garments by hand, and soon afterward the adult apprentice appears in the spiritual door at the lake's edge, full of anger and carrying the bloodstained knife with which he stabbed his wife for having an affair with another man. Unwilling to go on, he seals his eyes, mouth and nose in a suicide ritual (after brushing the Chinese character meaning "closed" on each of the seals) and sits in front of the newly returned Buddha statue, waiting for death. The master discovers him and beats him ruthlessly, declaring that while he may have killed his wife, he will not kill himself so easily. He ties his bloodied apprentice to the ceiling and sets a candle to slowly burn through the rope, then begins writing out the "Heart Sutra" on the monastery deck, holding the cat in his arms and dipping its tail into a bowl of black ink. The apprentice eventually falls and, beginning his repentance, cuts his hair off and is ordered to carve the Chinese characters into the wood to quiet his heart. Two detectives arrive at the monastery to arrest the apprentice, but the master asks them to allow him until the next day to finish his task. The apprentice continues throughout the night and collapses into sleep immediately upon finishing. Influenced by the soothing presence of the master, the detectives help the old monk paint his apprentice's carvings in orange, green, blue and purple. This appears to quiet their hearts as well. The apprentice wakes up and is peacefully taken away by the detectives, with the cat accompanying them in the back of the boat. After they leave, the master, knowing that his life is at its end, builds a pyre in the rowboat. He seals shut his ears, eyes, nose and mouth with paper in the same death ritual his apprentice performed and meditates as he is suffocated and burned to death. The master's tears can be seen through the paper seals as he is engulfed in flame and a snake swims from the rowboat to the monastery. Winter The now middle-aged apprentice returns to the frozen lake and former home, which has been drifting uninhabited for years. During this segment the animal motif is the snake, the Buddhist symbol of