It's springtime in a small house floating on a small raft on a small lake, surrounded on all sides by steep walls of forest or stone, broken here and there by ravines. Old Monk lives here with his young apprentice. The lesson for Spring is about pain and guilt and conscience, Summer's the cruelty of desire, Autumn's about letting go of rage, and Winter's about penance and finding peace. And so Spring comes around again, and the cycle begins anew, as it must, and within that compass are life, faith, growth, love, jealousy, hate, cruelty, mystery, redemption . . . and nature. The film functions as a kind of Zen koan, paying keen attention to the purest and most elementary things--good and bad alike--that make us human.