Li Yuan sat in the center of his Zhenjing, feeling the resonance of 水之性 (Shuǐ zhī Xìng) and 水之道 (Shuǐ zhī Dào) breathing together in a harmony that never settled.
Water had reached a depth he had not previously imagined. 真水 (Zhēn Shuǐ) had formed. 化室 (Huà Shì) had appeared. The evolution from individual to universal had occurred.
And in this newly achieved depth, he felt… a sense of completion. Not in the sense that there was nothing more to learn about water—there is never true completion in cultivation—but in the sense that this cycle had reached a natural resting point.
Water had taught what it needed to teach for now.
And then, in the silence that was pregnant with meaning, Li Yuan felt something else.
A vibration.
Not from the Water Understanding. Not from the newly evolved Core of Awareness.
But from another place within the Zhenjing—from one of the seventeen branches of the Tree of Meaning that had not yet reached Wenjing.
A vibration that was subtle but persistent. Like a call that was not demanding but that could not be ignored.
Li Yuan felt his awareness move—not with intention but with inevitability—toward the source of that vibration.
And he found himself standing at the threshold of the Space of Body Understanding.
He had never spent much time in this space.
The Understanding of Body reached Ganjing when he was thirty-two years old—thousands of years ago in linear time, but the memory was still clear—in Yangzhou, when he was working at Doctor Huang's Emergency Care Center.
Since then, the Understanding of Body had existed as one of the solid, mature branches that had reached Ganjing. But it had never… called to him in this way before.
Not like it was now.
Li Yuan stepped across the threshold and felt the landscape of this space.
It was different from the oceans and rivers of the Water Understanding. Different from the meaningful shadows of the Understanding of Fear. Different from the open sky of the Understanding of Heaven.
The Space of Body Understanding was… organic. Living. Breathing.
There was no clear horizon. No sky or ground in a geometric sense. Just… a presence. A presence that felt like the body itself—not a specific body but the essence of what it meant to have a form, to have boundaries, to have a physical experience.
And in the middle of this space, Li Yuan felt the core of the Understanding of Body vibrating with a new intensity.
He approached with slow steps, sensing with full awareness.
And memories began to emerge—not called forth but emerging naturally, like an effortless exhalation.
Yangzhou. The Emergency Care Center. Age thirty-two.
Li Yuan remembered with perfect clarity—like all memories in the Zhenjing, stored with a fidelity that was not distorted by time.
He remembered the patients who came with wounds that wouldn't heal. With fevers that wouldn't break. With pain that wouldn't subside.
He remembered Doctor Huang—the old man with stooped shoulders, with hands that trembled but were steady when they touched a patient, with eyes that saw not just the disease but the suffering behind the disease.
He remembered the long nights when he sat with dying patients, holding their hands, feeling their bodies slowly lose warmth, lose vitality, lose connection with the consciousness that inhabited them.
And he remembered the question that arose—a question that could not be answered with medical knowledge or with external observation.
What is the body? Not in an anatomical sense but in an existential one.
Why does the body store scars? Why does a person's posture reflect their inner burdens? Why can the right touch bring a relief that words cannot?
The body is not just flesh and bone. The body is… something else. Something deeper.
He remembered the meditation—one day in the outer world, but ten years in his inner time. Ten years in which he explored his own body not with analysis but with feeling, with a visceral awareness.
Feeling the memories stored in the muscles. The scars that were not only physical but spiritual. The way the body adapted through Daojing practice—not just becoming stronger but becoming more… resonant. More aligned with the Dao.
And then—the breakthrough. The moment when his awareness shifted from seeing the body as an object to feeling the body as a process, as a presence, as "a temporary home that stores every story of a life."
The Understanding of Body reached Ganjing in that moment.
And since then, he had a capability he didn't seek but which emerged naturally: passive healing. A touch that could "remind" another person's body how to become whole again.
Not healing in the sense of forcing a change. But reminding—bringing a resonance that made the body remember its own capacity for balance, for healing, for wholeness.
The memory faded and Li Yuan found himself back in the Space of Body Understanding in the Zhenjing.
But now, with the memory fresh, he felt this space with a different awareness.
I never truly explored the depths of the Understanding of Body, he realized with a mixture of surprise and… something else. Recognition. An awareness that there were depths he had not yet reached, that were waiting.
Since Yangzhou, I have used the Understanding of Body—to create a body of consciousness, to feel other people's pain, to facilitate healing. But I have never… dived in with the same intensity as I dived into Water.
Water got fifteen thousand years of my full attention. The body only got… utilitarian attention. Functional awareness.
But now the Body is calling. And that call cannot be ignored.
Li Yuan stood in the center of the Space of Body Understanding and felt its core vibrate.
And then—something he had never experienced before.
A vision.
Not a visual image but… a knowing. An awareness that didn't come from the mind but from a depth that transcended ordinary consciousness.
He saw—or more accurately, felt—a trajectory.
A path that the Understanding of Body could take if it was given the same attention that Water received.
An evolution from Ganjing to Wenjing. From feeling the body's resonance to hearing the intention behind every posture, every gesture, every breath.
And even further—an evolution that went beyond Wenjing, to a depth that didn't even have a name in the Daojing system he had developed.
But what was most shocking: this trajectory had a… timeline.
Twenty thousand years. Maybe more. Maybe less—depending on how deeply he was willing to dive, how long he was willing to sit in meditation, how totally he was willing to surrender to the process.
But an approximate: twenty thousand years to bring the Understanding of Body from Ganjing to Wenjing with the same depth as Water.
This is the first time, Li Yuan mused with profound awe, I have seen a concrete timeline for the evolution of an understanding. Not a vague estimate but a clear sense of how long the process will take.
Why now? Why have I never seen this before?
And the answer came—not from his mind but from a deeper wisdom.
Because every understanding has its time. Its season. Its own cycle.
The last fifteen thousand years were the season of Water. The time for Water to evolve from a simple liquid phase to 真水 that breathes with three phases. The time for Water to reach Wenjing, to become the Core of Awareness, to bring my entire Zhenjing to a new depth.
But now the season of Water has reached a natural resting point. And the season of the Body is beginning.
It's not that Water is no longer important. It's never about abandoning what has been achieved. But about recognizing that cultivation is not linear—it doesn't just focus on one understanding forever.
Cultivation is cyclical. Every understanding has its turn. Its opportunity to develop with full attention.
And now it is the Body's turn.
Li Yuan felt this awareness seep in—not as a decision he was making but as a recognition of a pattern that was already there, already formed, that only needed to be acknowledged.
And with that recognition, something profound began to happen in the structure of the Zhenjing.
The Core of Awareness—which had been Water for thousands of years, which had just evolved into 真水—began to… shift.
Not disappear. Never disappear. Water was not "stepping down" from its position as the Core of Awareness.
But… making space. Loosening its grip. Allowing something else to step forward.
Like the roots of a tree that are already firm, which no longer need all the nutrients for themselves, which can allow another branch to grow.
Li Yuan felt the Understanding of Body begin to move—from the periphery to the center, from a branch to the roots, from the background to the foreground.
And this transition… was incredibly subtle. Almost undetectable. Like the shift of seasons from autumn to winter—so gradual that you can't point to the exact moment when the change happens, but suddenly you realize the world feels different.
Water did not leave its position as the Core of Awareness entirely. It was still there—as a foundation, as the ground, as the filter that brought the quality of softness and flexibility to everything that passed through it.
But now, the Body was beginning to share that position.
Two Cores of Awareness—not replacing but coexisting, not competing but complementing.
Water that taught about flowing, about adapting, about eternal transformation.
The Body that would teach about grounding, about presence, about experiencing the Dao through the closest, most immediate, most honest form.
This is an evolution of the Daojing system itself, Li Yuan realized with quiet wonder. From having one Core of Awareness to having two—or perhaps later more, if other understandings also call with the same intensity.
Not a weakness but a richness. Not a dilution but a complexity.
A tree is not weak because it has many branches. A tree is strong because its root system is complex, which can absorb nutrients from various sources, which can adapt to various conditions.
The transition continued to happen—smooth, inevitable, natural.
And Li Yuan felt his identity shifting with that transition.
Before: I am Li Yuan who flows like water.
Now: I am Li Yuan who flows like water and who is grounded like the body. Who is transparent and who is present. Who is transformation and who is incarnation.
Not a contradiction but an expansion. Not losing an identity but enriching an identity.
When the transition was complete—or more accurately, when it reached a point where Li Yuan could recognize the new configuration with clarity—he felt the Zhenjing that had changed in its fundamental structure.
The Core of Awareness was now… dual. Or perhaps integrated. Or perhaps there was no right word because this was something that had never happened in the history of his Daojing.
Water and Body—two different principles that complemented each other—were now sharing the position as the core of his entire spiritual system.
And from this dual core, a new resonance began to emanate.
A resonance that was not just flowing or just grounding but… both. Simultaneously. In proportions that were constantly shifting but were always balanced.
Li Yuan felt the entire Tree of Meaning vibrate with this new configuration—not with instability but with a fresh vitality, with an awareness that a new evolution had begun.
Twenty thousand years, he mused, feeling the path that had opened up ahead. Maybe more. Maybe less. But that is the approximate time to bring the Understanding of Body from Ganjing to Wenjing with the same depth as Water.
Twenty thousand years to explore what the body means in all its depth—not just as a temporary home but as the Dao itself, as the most honest door, as a language that cannot lie.
Twenty thousand years to understand how the body stores every life story, how a wound is an archive, how healing is a remembering, how incarnation itself is a blessing, not a curse.
He felt anticipation—not an overwhelming excitement but a quiet anticipation, an awareness that a new journey had begun, that new depths were waiting to be reached.
But also: patience. The awareness that twenty thousand thousand years was a very long time, that there was no rush, that every step had to be solid before the next step was taken.
For now, Li Yuan decided with a wisdom born from fifteen thousand years of cultivation, I just need to acknowledge this transition. Recognize that the focus has shifted. Accept that a new season has begun.
The actual cultivation—the deep dive into the Understanding of Body with the same intensity as I gave to Water—that will come later. After I have finished this cycle on the ice continent. After I return to the outer world and find the right place for a meditation that might last decades or centuries.
There is no urgency. Only the awareness of a path that has opened.
Li Yuan stood at the threshold between the Space of Body Understanding and the center of his Zhenjing, feeling the newly formed dual Core of Awareness.
Water and Body.
Flowing and grounding.
Transformation and incarnation.
Two different principles that breathed together, that coexisted, that enriched each other without diminishing each other.
And he felt a profound gratitude—not to himself but to the Dao, to the process that was beyond his control, to the wisdom embedded in the structure of cultivation itself.
Every understanding has its time, he mused with a peaceful clarity.
Fifteen thousand years for Water.
And now—starting now, or starting soon—twenty thousand years for the Body.
And maybe later, another understanding will call. And the cycle will continue. Without end. As always.
The resonance from the dual Core of Awareness spread through the Zhenjing—gentle but persistent, subtle but transformative.
And Li Yuan—a conscious witness of the evolution that continued—felt something he hadn't expected.
Joy. Not excitement or euphoria but a quiet, deep joy, born from the recognition that the path continues, that the journey never ends, that there are always new depths to be reached.
Depth after depth.
Understanding after understanding.
Season after season.
Without end.
As always.
Water has taught its lessons for now.
The Body is beginning to call.
And cultivation—eternal, infinite, inexhaustible—continues.
With patience.
With humility.
With the awareness that becoming is never finished.
It just evolves.
Like water that changes phase.
Like a body that breathes.
Like the Dao that manifests through infinite forms, infinite paths, infinite depths.
Without end.