What the Mountain Is · Eleven Steps From the Edge · Pulse Beat
In the winter, the old lama at the monastery sent for him. It was a small, cold, whitewashed room, with a butter lamp, and a smell of juniper and old wool. The lama, who must have been eighty-five…
In the winter, the old lama at the monastery sent for him.
It was a small, cold, whitewashed room, with a butter lamp, and a smell of juniper and old wool. The lama, who must have been eighty-five, sat on a low bed, with a blanket over his knees and eyes like a bird's. He listened to Tashi for an hour, without moving.
"You think you killed him," he said at last.
"I think I made a decision, and he died."
"Yes. Both are true." The old man poured tea with a steady hand. "You want me to say that it was not your fault. I will not. I do not know. I only know that you are asking the wrong question."
"What is the right one?"
"Not whose fault. That is a question for judges. Ask: what does a man do who has been given a very heavy thing?" He smiled. "A mountain is not a place. It is a teaching about weight. Everyone who goes there comes down carrying something. You may carry it badly or well. That is all the choice there is."