After a few days of training with his master, Li Chen could now speak with him casually, without worrying about what to say or what to hold back.
He asked his master why he had chosen him — he did not believe a few golden trinkets would be sufficient payment for his tutoring. Cultivators in this world were either reaching the end of their lives or being pursued by those above them with no chance of escape except here. To such men, even cultivation artifacts or medicines were of little use — except perhaps life-extending ones.
He learned that his master had been thinking of finding a disciple and passing on his legacy. He had traveled through two nations and two families before arriving here. Good prospects either already had a master or possessed an indecent disposition. While passing through the Li Kingdom and drinking wine in a tavern, his ears caught the sound of Li Chen's guqin. As cultivators have keen senses, he sought him out — and found that the boy had earned a good and respectful reputation, unlike his mother.
At that moment Li Chen thought, 'Do you know how much money I could have made displaying these skills before the elites back on the blue planet? A dozen performances before the right audience and I would have been a millionaire. Do you think you can listen to my hard-earned skills for free? This is the repayment — the reputation sowed and reaped — and what's more, the harvest is far more plentiful than expected.'
He bid farewell to his teacher dressed in white, a 108-beaded necklace in hand. He had made it himself using beads from a bodhi tree strung together with fine silk. He did this so he could chant the mantra with each bead for a full cycle.
His master granted him a few days' leave, expecting trouble to arise somewhere along the way.
He and his two guards slipped quietly away from the palace gates, telling no one except his mother. His destination was only a few hours' journey from the palace — where there is a palace, there is always a monastery nearby, so a long journey was not needed. He expected to be back within a day, even traveling on foot, which was his intention from the start.
He wore a straw hat that covered his face with a generous margin. He set off walking. Perhaps because he was not dressed lavishly, no bandits crossed his path — though the sight of his guards trailing behind him drew the curious glances of passersby.
After two hours his legs grew heavy. 'This is impossible. I am already in the Heaven Layer and two hours of walking should be nothing. Why does it feel as though something is pressing me down with every step?' Li Chen thought.
He glanced at his guards — they looked perfectly comfortable. Then, without warning, he felt it — a sensation, as though something was calling for him. He stepped sideways off the path and into the forest, panting heavily.
'What is calling for me? Has my opportunity finally arrived? Is this somehow connected to the jade?' he questioned inwardly, moving slowly, his body drenched in sweat.
"Are you all right, my prince?" one guard asked, stepping forward to wipe his face with a cloth.
After reassuring them repeatedly, he pressed on — one step at a time, each step now taking half an hour. The guards stopped questioning him and took up positions around him, warding off the wild beasts that appeared every few breaths.
Li Chen collapsed limply to the ground, his body aching all over. Every muscle and fiber burned as though he had been carrying heavy weights for hours without rest.
'I cannot go on. My body refuses to move. If only I were older, or my cultivation a little higher.' He paused. 'No — nonsense. If I let this chance pass now it will not come again.'
He began to crawl, hands digging into the earth, nails broken and bleeding. He moved like a desperate beggar clinging to a wealthy man's robes for a single coin to feed his family. The immortal-like bearing everyone praised had long since crumbled into something far more raw — a desperate struggle to see one more sunrise.
"My prince," the guard from before spoke, removing the mask he usually wore. His handsome face caught the light brilliantly against Li Chen's disheveled and haggard one. "There are opportunities in this mortal world, yes — but there are far greater ones in the cultivation world. Why cling to the unseen, the unheard, the unknown?"
Li Chen looked back at the trail of blood he had left behind. He sighed. Ahead of him stood a large tree that looked no different from any other. A doubt surfaced — what if there was no opportunity here, but a disaster? If this was the hidden refuge of an evil cultivator who had fled the cultivation world, he would end up as that person's garment. But something deep inside him disagreed, urging him forward.
Li Chen was a decisive person. When he truly wanted something, he gave everything. And he wanted to see what was inside.
On the verge of losing consciousness, he reached out and touched the tree, his eyes vacant. When he opened them again the world had changed entirely. His guards were nowhere to be seen.
Before him stood a great stone — carved, shaped somewhere between a pillar and a frozen vibration. Its zigzagging curved outline bore an inscription: The Temple of Self-Returning Sound.
He studied the carving and pressed a finger into the groove. Though his finger was small against it, he could tell it had been written by a finger alone. The stone itself was unlike any ordinary stone — it gleamed faintly, as though lit from within.
Then his ears found the sound of moving water — the drizzle of droplets cascading somewhere nearby, carrying with it a serenity that settled into his already calm mind.
Before him lay a very ancient temple, cradled between mountains on either side, a waterfall descending at its back. Its entrance faced east, where the sun awakens — for though the sun does not rise from the east in this world, it does arrive from the east above the earth, completing its arc and departing in the west. The great hall at the top faced west.
Five stupas were placed around the temple. The temple itself was a great spiral — a stepped pagoda with a circular base and a spiral ramp climbing inward. From above it would resemble a conch shell, the corridor of steps winding upward and collapsing inward like a shell climbing toward its center. One hundred and eight feet in diameter at its base, fifty-four feet high, making seven and a half spirals with one hundred and eight steps leading to the center above. As one ascended, the spiral's diameter decreased in accordance with the golden ratio.
Li Chen took out his beads. His original intention had been to enter a temple, take his seat, and chant the mantra one hundred and eight times to cleanse his karma. Now he placed one foot onto the first step of the spiral, breathed in, chanted the six-syllable bright heart mantra, and breathed out. He pushed one bead back.
The corridor was low and narrow. Its walls were covered in small, slightly concave clay and stone tiles. Walking through it created a widespread rustle — the tiles reflected a smoothed, noise-like sound that canceled all external distraction.
The floor was hollow beneath, with a thin layer of dry sand below the surface. Each footstep produced a subtle, irregular low-frequency rumble — as though the earth itself was training mindfulness of the body's own vibration.
With each step he chanted once and pushed one bead back. This was one of the few Buddhist mantras he still remembered — one that invokes compassion, breaks obstacles, and cleanses karma. It is said that this mantra also dissolves the six negative emotions while purifying the pride and arrogance associated with the Deva realm, the jealousy and rivalry of the Asuras, the passion and desire of humans, the ignorance and prejudice of animals, the greed and possessiveness of the Preta, and the aggression and hatred of the Naraka.
He did not know if a simple mantra could accomplish all of this. But he could try — through introspection and reflection. While cleansing his karma, he would attempt to dissolve or at least confront his negative emotions. With every step, a memory arose on its own, without him reaching for it. He saw them clearly — saw how each had affected him and those around him.
Although he looked calm, composed, and peaceful now, he had not always been this way.
He remembered the time his anger turned to rage — throwing things across the room, every object within reach becoming an outlet. He had been angered by what he read and what he witnessed in the world, and his helplessness had transformed into rage, desperate for somewhere to go.
He remembered that his grandmother had not scolded him. She had simply bought more vases to replace the broken ones, and quietly swapped most of the metal objects in the house for clay and ceramic ones, so that if he needed to break something, at least it would break easily.
He thought, 'Why does anger need something to break? Only when the object shattered did it feel any rest. If the object did not break, the anger peaked further — intensifying, demanding more. Why?'
'Aggression and hatred need something or someone to break — to prove power over what they fear they cannot control. If the object does not break, the anger feels ignored, so it grows louder, demanding proof of its dominance. If the object breaks, the anger feels satisfied — but only for a moment. Then it needs something else to break. And something else. And something else again, like a hungry ghost that is never satisfied, consuming until there is nothing left but exhaustion.
Anger mistakes destruction for release. But release is never found outside. It is the anger itself that needs to break — not the object.'
Li Chen moved one more step forward.
This step opened into something entirely unlike what came before — a wide, spacious landing. A mandala laid out in rough basalt. Brass bowls partially filled with water sat in alcoves at the four corners. Bronze wind chimes of precise length hung nearby.
Li Chen stepped in and stood at the centre. A sound wave passed through him like a tide — a faint tingling that moved from his feet upward.
This was the ninth step. The first of the twelve Nidānas — Avidyā. Ignorance.
His mind was met with scenes from the past, settling at the moment his anger had been at its height.
'Why was he angry?'
The anger he had carried — the injustice, the waste, the broken systems, the helplessness, the lives swallowed by the war. A righteous anger. An understandable anger. But underneath it, when the surface quieted, he found something he had not expected.
It had been about him all along.
The war had threatened his peace. Disrupted his life. Cut short his time to finish his questions. The suffering of others had been real and he had genuinely grieved it — but the anger, the specific burning quality of it, had been personal. That was a self feeling threatened.
He recognised it. He acknowledged it without flinching.
He had spent decades studying the self and never seen this. Not because he had not been looking — but because you cannot see the eye with the eye. The thing doing the looking cannot look at itself directly. His anger had shown him the shape of something he could not otherwise perceive — the outline of a self that he had believed philosophically did not exist, yet had been operating as though it absolutely did.
Right View does not arrive as an answer. It arrives as a question one cannot un-ask:
'If there is no fixed self — then who has been angry this whole time?'
He could not answer it. But the question itself was the platform. He stood upon it, and his legs carried him forward.
The feeling of a fixed, permanent self at the centre of experience — this was his ignorance. The self is but an illusion.
Ignorance is the root of all suffering — not merely not knowing, but actively misperceiving reality. Believing the self is permanent when it is not. Believing phenomena are inherently real when they are empty. Believing pleasure is lasting when it is fleeting.
Li Chen stood and spoke quietly to himself. "Life inherently involves suffering, dissatisfaction, and unease. The root cause of suffering is craving and ignorance. It is possible to end suffering completely — this cessation is achieved by eliminating craving and ignorance, leading to the state of nirvana, a liberation from the cycle of rebirth. The way to end suffering is by following the Noble Eightfold Path — a practical guide to ethical conduct, mental discipline, and wisdom. These are the Four Noble Truths: the truth of suffering, Dukkha; the cause of suffering, Samudaya; the end of suffering, Nirodha; and the path to the end of suffering, Magga."
Right View — one of the Noble Eightfold Path's pillars of Wisdom — had begun to break the first link in the chain.
Ignorance, for the first time, had been seen.