It was like knowing what "spicy" felt like without having chili in your mouth, knowing what "pain" felt like without being injured.
He no longer distinguished between self and others, good and evil, high and low, close and distant.
He viewed people as he viewed plants and trees, and emotions as he viewed morning dew.
When someone walked past him, he would not wonder, "Is he a good person or a bad person?" Just as when you saw a tree, you would not wonder, "Is this tree good or evil?"
When someone smiled at him, he would not wonder, "Is it sincere or fake?" Just as when you saw a flower bloom, you would not wonder, "Why did this flower bloom?"
He had no desires, nor did he pursue anything.
Power, wealth, fame, appearance, emotion, excitement, novelty—everything that could stir a person's heart, he had experienced countless times.
He had tasted enough sweetness, suffered enough bitterness, grown sick of intensity, and tired even of blandness.
It was not something he had deliberately given up. It simply disappeared naturally.
Like a cup continually being filled with water: once it was full, any more would overflow.
The cup in his heart had long since overflowed itself empty.
Only one most basic need remained: to exist, and not suffer.
He was not afraid of death.
Not because he was brave, but because death and life no longer differed to him.
Like sitting by the sea and watching the tides, high tide and low tide were both water. He did not cling to life, not because of despair, but because life and death were merely two states, just as day and night were both days.
At a thousand years old, he no longer thought. He simply "existed."
When he was young, he sought answers—what