Zinc Roof

"Master, I do not understand."

"Accident of your parents's mating, you are listening to the words. The words are unimportant. Listen to what I say."

"But master, if I do not listen to the words, how am I to understand what you say?"

"Little generation gap, I cannot tell you how to learn. Only how to listen. You must learn on your own."

"So listening is not learning?"

"That's right."

"Learning is not listening."

"That is not right."

"If listening and learning are not equivalent when turned around in a sentence, then I have much to learn."

"You are not who you are. That is what you are learning. You are not a child. You are not your parents' offspring. You are not many things. My words will only teach you who you are not. What you will learn on your own is who you are."

"I see. Then who am I?"

"That, crushed pebble under my foot, is the question. The answer is all around you but nowhere to be seen. You are not anything you see but what you see is all a part of you. When you see this clearly, and you never will, you will know who you are."

"You mean I will never know who I am?"

"That's right."

"Then what is the purpose of living?"

"To know who you were."

"Why should I care about who I was?"

"Because it is the only way to know who you will be."

"If I don't know who I am, how will I know who I will be?"

"You won't."

"I don't understand."

"We waste our breath with each other because you want to listen to my words. My words do not exist. What you see around you are the only things that exist."

"So if I am not who I am and what I see clearly but cannot see is not who I am but is a part of me, part of who I was or who I will be, then how do I learn?"

"Ah, reflection of the Sun, you have found a question and an answer."

"I have?"

"The question is the answer."

"To what?"

"Precisely."

"I don't understand."

"Exactly."