Reflective Response to Kim Ki Duk's Film "Spring"

           Wisdom is different from being intelligent or smart. Wisdom is something that is accumulated through several generations, not acquired through experiments or books. Wisdom is earned from trials and errors of lives of thousands of people. Nobody is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes even from the start of their lives.

           Kim Ki Duk's film "Spring" deals with similar routine of life. In spring, new life forms come out without knowing anything. Similarly, the young monk in the film does not have a lot of experience to know what is right or wrong. With a few Buddhist teachings, the young monk follows his instincts. He likes to take adventures on mountains and follow his footsteps. One of his instincts is having fun while playing around with animals. In the film, he ties a fish, a frog, and a snake to small stones with thread. The young monk snickers as he watches the tied animals wriggling while struggling with the weight of the stones. Apparently, the wriggling of animals gives joy to the boy, who does not know that his acts can be a pain to the animals. To make the boy learn, the master monk ties the boy to a rock. When the boy asks the master monk to untie the rock, the master monk orders the boy to untie the animals. As the boy goes on a journey to untie the animals, he finds out how much the animals had suffered. The fish was dead, the frog was unable to climb the rock, and the snake was dead with blood splattered all over the place. The young monk regrets his thoughtless acts and sheds tears.

           The young monk had no idea of knowing how the animals felt as he made the animals his toys. If the master monk had just told the young monk not to torture the animals, the young monk probably would not have understood why and kept torturing the animals. Instead, the master monk had the wisdom to enlighten the boy about the importance of life. Such wisdom came from accumulence of life lesssons. The master monk passed on his wisdom to the young monk.

           Similarly, I have also made mistakes on which I did not know that it could be a pain to someone else.  In elementary school, I learned how to cooperate with other kids. I did not have a special fight with people, but still I naturally learned how to behave differently in school. For example, I was quite self-centered and poor at controlling my dissatisfaction when I was young. When something bothered me, I was not able to hide or control my anger.  One day, my friend made a petty mistake, and I  got too much angry and almost shouted. My behavior also made my upset. We both felt bad for each other,since we both did not knew that our behaviors will hurt each other's feelings. We apologized, and like this, step by step I learned how to control my emotions.
           Wrongdoings give pain to each other, and no one wants to be hurt. As we give and receive pain simultaneously, we learn life lessons along with wisdom. The wisdom is used for changing one's own behavior and also to teach others. Through trials and errors we fill each other's imperfectness.