THE FINAL EVOLUTION
Part Four
The tiny fluorescent dots against the black background produced an uncanny effect, like stars embedded in infinitely deep darkness. I said, "It looks like... the universe?"
"Heh heh." She gave a satisfied laugh, sat back down, and twirled the pen in her hand. "Alright, let's assume this is just one part of the universe—the Milky Way. So, if I isolate one of these bright dots—" She marked a spot on the black paper. "If we zoomed in on it, could it be our solar system?"
I nodded. "It could be."
She pointed at that dot with her pen. "Assume this is the solar system. Zoom in further, and we find Earth. Zoom in again, and we see China. Zoom in again, and we see this very room we're sitting in. Zoom in again, and we see a person—you. Possible?"
I nodded again. "Yes, possible."
Her: "Good. We've found you. Now zoom in further—we see a strand of your hair. Zoom in again—we see a molecule that makes up your hair. Zoom in again—we see an atom that makes up that molecule. Zoom in again—we see a proton inside the atom. A proton is already incredibly small, only one ten-thousandth the size of an atom. Zoom in again—we see a quark inside the proton. Zoom in again... do you know what we'd see?"
I shook my head.
Cody pushed the black paper, covered with fluorescent dots, in front of me. "We'd see this again."
I gasped. "The universe?"
"That's right—the universe." She held my gaze. "We'd see another miniature universe inside a single strand of your hair."
A sensation I couldn't name swept through my entire body like an electric current—not shock, not anger, not sorrow, not despair... I couldn't describe it. The feeling made every hair on my back stand on end in a single instant.
"Hahahaha..." Seeing my stunned expression, Cody couldn't suppress her wild laughter. She laughed until she was gasping for breath: "Incredible... isn't it incredible! A powerful program that created countless worlds using only one single looping pattern! Genius, sheer genius..."
"No, no..." I mumbled. "This is just your own imagination..."
"I'm sorry, but it's really not my imagination. This is a phenomenon that has already been confirmed by the scientific community." She spread her hands.
I forced myself to calm down, furrowing my brow so my expression wouldn't betray anything else. I lit my second cigarette, took a deep drag, and said: "Back to the point—what does this have to do with your future Buddha descending to earth?"
Her: "Isn't it strange? If we cut our hair, trim our nails, wash our hands, or even take a bite of an apple, we're invisibly destroying countless worlds. Given their brevity, what meaning does the existence of these worlds even have?"
Before I could formulate an answer, she went on: "But it's not like that at all. The so-called brevity is merely human arrogance. The microscopic world belongs to God—you should know this famous scientific assertion. In those unreachable subatomic worlds, different dimensions of space are curled up. That's how it is—the flow of time is relative. Discussing the pace of time across different spatial dimensions is meaningless. You go wash your hands and rinse off a speck of dust, thinking only three seconds have passed, but for some world inside that dust speck, more than a billion years have already unfolded."
I was beginning to grasp where she was going.
She looked at me and took a deep breath. "The future Buddha resides in Tushita Heaven. That is a world in bloom, incomparably beautiful, incomparably harmonious—perhaps the speed of light is close to infinite there, perhaps individual thought is clearer and more complete, perhaps consciousness can communicate directly with other consciousness without the barrier of language, perhaps the celestial bodies are enormous while gravity is so slight that everyone floats as light as feathers... But no matter what, Tushita Heaven is fundamentally the same as Earth. It might be a grain of sand in our world, and our world might be a grain of sand in Tushita Heaven—though I think it's more likely they come from a microscopic world. So the flow of time in their world is different from ours." She paused, then said with meaning: "Regarding the future Buddha's time of descent, there is only one explanation: the so-called 5.66 billion years refers to their world's time, not our world's time."
Her grandiose language left me slightly dizzy, but this might also be an opportunity to find a flaw in her reasoning. I asked: "If converted to our world's time, how long would that be?"
"Who knows." Cody shrugged. "Perhaps decades, perhaps centuries, perhaps millennia. Perhaps... he will never come. Whether he descends or not depends entirely on humanity's own performance."
I was puzzled. "Humanity's own performance?"
Her: "That's right. What do you think the Buddha descended to the human world for?"
Me: "According to Buddhist theory, it was to deliver all sentient beings."
Her: "Naive! 'Delivering all sentient beings' is merely a code phrase!"
Me: "A code phrase?"
Her: "For those who understand it, a code phrase has universal applicability. Let me give you an example—you attend a fancy dinner party and suddenly feel stomach discomfort. What would you say?"
Me: "I'd say, 'Excuse me, I need to use the washroom.'"
Her: "Exactly—you're not going to the washroom to wash your hands."
Me: "I understand your point... but I still don't understand what your code phrase 'deliverance' actually means."
Cody's tone carried a hint of regret. "I've already said so much... This is also why I'm disappointed in humanity. Perhaps on this point, I'll never find resonance with anyone else. Fine, I'll tell you—the true meaning of 'deliverance' is resistance."
I was thunderstruck. "Resistance? Resistance against whom?"
Her: "Against the Genesis Program. Against the world that created us!"
I was completely dumbfounded. The Buddha came for that?
She stared at me and said with absolute seriousness: "The beings in Tushita Heaven—where the Buddha resides—they too were created by the Genesis Program, just like us! But their civilization had already evolved to a highly advanced level, so they became aware of their own situation. In other words, the Tushita Heaven civilization knows it is running inside the Genesis Program. Think about it—some higher form of life designed this program, and within it spawned both us and Tushita Heaven—Earth and Tushita Heaven are both just parts of it. Perhaps outside this wretched universe, our creators are observing us the way someone peers at bacteria in a petri dish! We don't know their motives—it might be a scientific experiment by some form of life, or a whim of momentary curiosity, or using us as a reference to study their own universe—but no matter what, resistance is our only way out!"
I was utterly speechless.
Cody continued, her tone as measured and calm as if she were stating a simple fact: "Having heard everything I've explained, you should be able to see this as well—the Buddha's true identity is an emissary dispatched from their world, with the purpose of joining forces with awakened humans to resist the Genesis Program. But upon arriving in our world, he found that humanity's ignorance far exceeded his expectations. To awaken humanity, he began teaching in the world, hoping to open human minds. Don't forget—the word 'Fo' itself means 'awakened one.' Awakened to what? Buddhism has been giving us hints all along."
I suddenly seized upon a flaw in her argument. "If the Buddha had already realized the truth of the world, why didn't he just say it directly? Why make people puzzle over these obscure sutras?"
"How naive!" Cody gave me an extremely contemptuous glance and curled her lip. "Even if you've evolved from ape to god, you still have to 'play politics'! What is politics, essentially? It's nothing more than degrees of mutual exploitation and mutual threat! The Creator of the Genesis Program wants us to keep evolving, so they must give us room to survive. But—just like when you're unhappy about something, you can post complaints online and that's fine, but if you organize a protest march on the streets, what happens? Obviously, you get shut down immediately."
Me: "You're saying that if the Tushita Heaven civilization publicly announced the truth of the world, the Genesis Program would eliminate them?"
Cody nodded. "Exactly. The Buddha didn't want to get called in for tea either."
I thought for a moment. "If what you say is true, did the Buddha only come to our world? Are there Buddhas in other worlds?"
She smiled. "You finally asked a smart question. The Buddha said he has eighty-four thousand dharma bodies, spread throughout the void—that much is already clear. The Tushita Heaven civilization dispatched many emissaries to different worlds. Those they can ally with, they ally with; those they can't yet ally with, they guide first. So, many worlds have left traces of their civilization. Just how many, that depends on how advanced Tushita Heaven's civilization has become."
I suddenly thought of a crucial question: "Since Tushita Heaven has developed such an advanced civilization, why did the Buddha arrive in the world in that manner... I mean, at least they could have brought some high-tech equipment?"
Her: "This is why I say humans are stupid—they always speculate about others, even other civilizations, based on their own assumptions. Do you know what happens when a civilization evolves to a certain height? It returns to simplicity and naturalness. Shakyamuni is called 'Tathagata'—do you know what Tathagata means? It means 'just as I originally am.' That is the ultimate expression of a civilization developed to its utmost peaks."
I tried to find a flaw in her reasoning, even the slightest opening, but her logic was airtight. I thought again and asked: "In that case, when will the future Buddha Maitreya actually descend from Tushita Heaven?"
Cody shrugged. "Heaven knows. Humanity hasn't awakened yet—why would he come?"
Me: "Buddhism has been around for three thousand years. Why hasn't humanity awakened by now?"
To my surprise, Cody suddenly burst into wild laughter again, laughing so hard her whole body shook, wiping tears from her eyes as she said: "We've gone in a full circle and finally come back to the starting point. You should have realized this question much earlier. This is what I wanted to tell the whole world—though so far I've only told one person. The reason humanity still hasn't awakened to this day is that humanity has already stopped evolving!"
Me: "What? You're saying humanity has stopped evolving?"
Her: "Not just humanity—all species on Earth have stopped evolving. Our world is currently in a zero-evolution era!"