Silence.

It was not the absence of sound.

It was a space where all thoughts had been stripped away, where even will itself became transparent—

Juliana stood there.

Neither darkness nor light.

It was the silence of existence itself, neither “color" nor “colorless."

Juliana no longer possessed a body. As a “way of being" that could not even be called consciousness, she simply was there.

If the Ālaya-vijñāna was the “ocean of memory," then here—the Amalavijñāna—was the “place without memory."

Yet it was not “emptiness." Rather—

Her “consciousness" was touching something formless. It was something that could be called neither “self" nor “other."

Thought, emotion, name—all had vanished. Yet this was true “existence."

Then something flowed in. Not words. Not images. It resembled a “sound."

— I was once someone.
— I will become someone.
— But now, I am no one.

Amalavijñāna is “non-self" yet also “absolute self." In Nichiren’s teaching of the Lotus Sutra, the concept of “mutual possession of the ten worlds" and “three thousand realms in a single moment" means that even in one breath of this instant, the entire universe is contained.

Juliana touched this truth.

“I" already was.

“I" was no longer something to be sought.

In every life, “I" was flowing as the “now."

— At that moment, the Amalavijñāna quietly closed.

As if saying “this is enough," Juliana “descended." Having accepted being “no one," she tried to become “someone" again.

When she opened her eyes, wind was blowing there.

In the place where the Axiom Empire once stood, the central control tower had become rubble, and the management AI had stopped.

But the people were not confused.

They laughed, tilled the soil, exchanged words, felt fragrances, and loved.

Juliana had abandoned her name. Unrecognized by anyone, she walked this world as just a traveler.

But wherever she passed, flowers always bloomed. Children began to laugh, and elders wiped away their tears.