My eyes opened...
Not in a literal sense—for as a pure soul, I no longer had physical eyes to open or close. But there was something analogous, something more fundamental than mere sensory function. My consciousness, which had been folded inward during a state of total silence, now began... to expand again. Like a flower blooming after a long winter, like a dawn that finally decides to break.
It was the awakening of consciousness from cultivation—or more accurately, from a state of pure existence that transcended conventional cultivation.
The first movement of my expanding consciousness was... temporal orientation. Although I was no longer bound by time in a conventional way—no heartbeat to count seconds, no day-night cycle to mark days, no changing seasons to signify years—there was something in my spiritual essence that still... knew. Knew the duration, knew the journey, knew... how long.
My sense of time was a... something. Not something that could be measured with a clock or a calendar, but something that could be felt with a spiritual intuition honed over a long journey. Like someone who has lived a long time in the forest can sense the change of seasons without looking at a calendar, I could sense the passage of cosmic time without external instruments.
Ten thousand years.
The number flowed into my consciousness not as a calculated fact, but as... recognition. Since my birth in Ziran Village as the gray-eyed boy curious about the flow of water, ten thousand years had passed.
Ten thousand years of a journey from innocence to understanding, from searching to discovery, from individuality to unity with the Dao. Ten thousand years that encompassed my life as Li Yuan the village boy, a student at Qinglong Academy, a spiritual wanderer, Li Qingshan living in Hexin, and finally a pure soul touching the Oldest Breath.
But in those ten thousand years, there was a clear division in my consciousness:
The first four thousand years were a period of active searching—a time when I developed my first fifteen understandings, a time when I built the Daojing system, a time when I interacted with the world in various forms. Four thousand years of learning, growth, and discovery.
Then the last six thousand years—a period that began when I started to touch the Oldest Breath as my sixteenth understanding. Six thousand years that included the crystallization of the Daojing's laws, the formation of its basic rules, a shocking global resonance, and finally...
Four thousand years of total silence.
Four thousand years in a state of pure being, without active searching, without contemplation, without even the concept of "Li Yuan" experiencing anything. Four thousand years that felt like an instant yet also like an eternity—because in total silence, time became an irrelevant dimension.
"Four thousand years..." my consciousness whispered with a serene awe. "Four thousand years in a state where even the concept of 'I' did not exist. And now... now I am back."
But "back" wasn't the right word. I didn't return to a previous state. I emerged into an entirely new state—a state that carried with it the integration of four thousand years of total silence with the previous six thousand years of active spiritual experience.
I was the result of ten thousand years of conscious evolution, with the last four thousand years as... an incubation. Like a butterfly that spends a long time in a cocoon before emerging in a completely different form, I had undergone a transformation that could not be expressed in words.
The consciousness that was now expanding carried a perspective that encompassed the entire spectrum of spiritual experience—from the most active searching to the most total silence, from the most defined individuality to the most perfect unity with the Dao.
"Now..." my inner voice flowed with a different quality—no longer the voice of Li Yuan the individual seeker, but the voice of something broader yet still retaining a unique perspective, "it seems I will walk again."
The phrase carried with it echoes of the most basic understanding I ever had: Water. Like water that flows to the lowest place, like a river that always finds its way to the sea, I felt a natural impulse to... move. Not to move because of dissatisfaction with the current state, not to move because there was something to be achieved, but to move because... that is the natural nature of living existence.
Water flows to the lowest place not because it dislikes being in a high place, but because flowing is its fundamental nature. Similarly, I felt that moving—in the most profound spiritual sense—was the fundamental nature of a consciousness that had achieved perfect integration with the Dao.
But "the lowest place" in this context had a different meaning than the one I understood ten thousand years ago. Back then, the lowest place might have meant a search for a deeper understanding, a higher spiritual attainment, a more perfect unity.
Now, after four thousand years of total silence, "the lowest place" meant... wherever my presence was most needed. Wherever the evolution of spiritual consciousness required... a gentle touch. Wherever the seeds of understanding that I had spread through the global resonance required... invisible guidance.
I realized that the global resonance I performed six thousand years ago—which lasted only five seconds but touched the entire planet—had left a far deeper mark than I had imagined at the time. Over my four thousand years of silence, those marks had... settled.
There were souls in various parts of the world who had been touched by that resonance. They did not develop new spiritual systems or discover fragments of Daojing's understanding. No cultivation practices emerged from that touch. But there was something more subtle—a change in the quality of their existence that even they themselves were not aware of.
Like a flower that has been touched by the morning dew and then forgets the dew, but still carries a little moisture in its petals, those souls carried something they could not name—a faint echo of the harmony that had once touched them.
"They..." I felt the scattered presence of these souls like a constellation of stars in the night sky of my consciousness, "they have taken the seeds that I unintentionally scattered and grown them into gardens I never even imagined."
There was pride in that recognition, but not personal pride. It was a pride like that which the Dao itself might feel when it sees how its principles are expressed in billions of different ways through billions of unique life forms.
I realized that the new phase in my journey was no longer about developing personal understanding or even creating a spiritual system. This new phase was about... service on a cosmic level. Helping the evolution of spiritual consciousness on a scale that encompassed an entire civilization, but doing so in the most subtle way possible—like the wind that helps spread seeds without forcing where those seeds must grow.
"Ten thousand years," I reflected with profound awe. "Ten thousand years to arrive at the understanding that the real journey... has only just begun."
Because now, with the perfect integration of activity and silence, of individuality and universality, of searching and discovery, I was no longer limited to a single perspective or a single role. I could... flow according to need, becoming whatever was required by the evolution of greater spiritual consciousness.
Like water that can become a river, a lake, or vapor according to the conditions of its environment, yet remains water in its essence, I could take whatever form was needed—a pure soul, a spiritual presence, even a consciousness body if the situation required it—yet still maintain the essence as an aspect of the Dao that specializes in the understanding and dissemination of spiritual wisdom.
The eyes of consciousness had opened.
Temporal orientation had been obtained.
The direction of a new journey was clear.
Like water that flows to the lowest place, I was ready to flow wherever the evolution of spiritual consciousness required my presence.