In that month that passed…
I did not feel hunger.
Nor thirst.
Nor fatigue.
Nor need of anything.
As if my body
had been subdued by something greater.
As if it wasn't I who had been still
but time itself had stilled for me.
Li Yuan sat with his back resting against an old tree.
The wind blew gently.
The morning sunlight touched his skin,
but did not bring the usual warmth.
Because his heart was occupied.
"Why am I not hungry?"
"Even though a month has passed..."
"Has my body begun to change?"
But more than that,
there was a space opening within him.
An inner space
that had long been hidden.
A space of understanding.
This space had no form.
No boundaries.
Yet he could feel it—
like an awareness slowly growing
from somewhere not the mind,
not the heart,
but deeper than both.
"Every understanding gives birth to form,"
"And every form shapes space."
Li Yuan reflected.
Not merely thinking,
but immersed in stillness.
He retraced his steps.
How he had come to understand water,
stillness,
emptiness,
even the fear that had recently arisen.
And from all of this…
he saw a pattern.
"None of these understandings remain still."
"They create a place."
That place was like a garden.
Or perhaps a world.
But not the outer world.
Rather, an inner one.
He named it:
The Space of Understanding.
And within that space,
every insight he had ever gained
was alive.
When he closed his eyes,
he could feel
the understanding of water
flowing like a river inside him.
He could hear
the understanding of stillness
whispering like the wind.
He could see
the understanding of fear
standing like a silent mountain in the distance.
None of them were still.
All of them were breathing.
"So… this is why I don't feel hunger?"
"My body wasn't fed…"
"But my heart has been receiving understanding."
He began to realize:
The outer body is not the only one that lives.
There is another body.
A body built from understanding.
And that inner space
is the place where that body grows.
The days passed.
Li Yuan no longer measured time by the sun,
but by the waves of insight that rose within him.
He knew,
this was his own form of cultivation.
Without Qi.
Without techniques.
Without forms.
Yet still growing.
"Each understanding is a seed."
"And each seed grows in the inner space."
"One day… this space will become a world."
He smiled softly.
Not from joy,
but from beginning to understand something
that could never be grasped
by logic alone.
To reflect is not merely to think.
To reflect is to listen—
to a voice so quiet,
it can only be heard
when the entire outside world
has fallen silent.
The Space of Understanding.
A place where time flows differently.
A place where stillness becomes strength.
A place where fear takes form.
A place where he could grow…
…without limits.
And from within that space,
a new realization began to form:
"I do not have to understand the world…"
"…if I can build my own world out of understanding."
Li Yuan slowly opened his eyes.
A soft wind blew from the east.
Leaves swayed gently, as if welcoming the return of his awareness.
But within him
something had changed.
Not his body.
Not his mind.
But the very root of his being.
A single understanding
that once seemed like a seed,
had now touched something far deeper.
And when it was touched...
his inner world trembled softly,
not like a storm,
but like the earth itself suddenly taking a breath.
"Every understanding that truly touches…"
"…will change something."
Li Yuan realized,
he had touched the understanding behind understanding.
No longer just grasping the nature of water,
or stillness,
but now touching what allows understanding itself to be known.
A root.
A subtle path never noticed before.
This path could not be seen.
It had no direction.
No shape.
But he knew—
he was walking a road that had never been walked.
"If this world holds thousands of paths,"
"Why have I chosen the one that no one has stepped on?"
"What has brought me here?"
That question was not answered by a voice,
but by silence.
And the silence replied with the presence of awareness:
That the path never walked
is the one born from within.
Not inherited.
Not shown.
Not forced.
But formed
from each understanding that continuously reaches deeper.
He looked again into his inner space.
Each understanding now carried a soft glow.
And from that light,
fine lines emerged
like roots of a tree growing in directions unknown.
Li Yuan knew:
this was his path.
The path never walked.
It was not merely ground to step on—
but the very soil where understanding grew.
Each step was not a physical movement,
but a resonance of meaning.
He didn't know where this path would end.
He didn't know if anyone had ever walked it before.
And perhaps
no one ever had.
But precisely because of that,
he was at peace.
Because for the first time,
he felt free.
"I follow no one."
"I oppose no one."
"I simply walk… within myself."
And the more he walked,
the more he understood:
that this path was not something beneath his feet—
but a reflection of his own transformation.
At the height of his reflection,
Li Yuan took a breath.
Not long, not short.
But that breath carried one thing:
A new understanding.
That the path never walked
is not only difficult,
but deeply quiet.
Yet in that silence...
lies something that will never be found
by those who merely follow the old footsteps.
The true self.