Chapter 3 part two

So this is heaven, he thought, amused to himself.It seems disrespectful to speculate about it as soon as you fly through it. He had ascended from the mortal world to line up closely with these two glorious seagulls.Together through the clouds.At this moment, he found that his body had also become crystal clear like theirs.True, his life had always been richer than his golden eyes could see, but it was the same young Jonathan, and now even his appearance had changed. I still feel like a seagull on my body, but flying is very different from the past.He thought: How strange, with half the effort, my speed is twice as fast as before.I've doubled my accomplishments from the best days on earth.

His feathers were brilliant white now, and his wings were smooth and perfect as polished silver.Filled with joy, he began to figure out the function of his own wings, trying to put his strength on the new pair of wings. At two hundred and fifty miles an hour, he felt close to the top speed for level flight.At two hundred and seventy-three miles an hour, he decided it couldn't go any faster.He couldn't help being slightly disappointed.Unexpectedly, this new body will be beyond its power.Although it has far exceeded the previous level flight record, it still has a limited speed after all, and it will take a lot of effort to exceed the limit.In heaven, he thought, everything should be infinite.

The clouds cleared, and his guides shouted "Good landing, Jonathan!" and disappeared into the thin atmosphere. He flew across a stretch of sea toward the crooked coastline.On the cliffs by the sea, a few seagulls are flying upwards.In the far north, on the horizon, there are several other seagulls soaring.New visions, new ideas, new problems.Why are there only so few seagulls?Paradise should be full of gulls!Why do I feel so tired all of a sudden?Seagulls in Paradise should never get tired and never sleep. Where had he heard all this?His memory of earthly life had begun to fade.Of course, in that place on earth, he had learned a lot, but all the details were blurred—and he seemed to remember flying for food, and he was an outcast himself.

A dozen seagulls flew to meet him from the shore, but no one said anything.He just felt welcome, that this was his home.This day is an important day for him, but he can't remember when the dawn of this day started. He turned around and prepared to land on the beach. He waved his wings first, paused in the air for a moment, and then gently landed on the sand.Other gulls landed too, but none of them waved a feather.They flew against the wind, spread their shiny wings, and then, somehow changing the curvature of their feathers, landed, touching the ground on both feet.It's amazing to master.But Jonathan was too tired at this time, and he didn't want to follow suit at all.He stood on the beach, still not saying a word, and fell asleep after a while.

In the next few days, Jonathan found that here, as in his previous life, there was a lot to learn about flying.The difference is that here the seagull shares his thoughts.For each of them, the most important thing in life is to maximize their potential and to do their favorite thing perfectly, which is flying.They are all amazing birds, practicing flying and experimenting with advanced stunts every hour of every day. For a long time, Jonathan forgot the world he came from, the place where the gulls lived, and his compatriots who could not see the joy of flying but only used their wings as a means of finding and A tool for competing for food.But occasionally he thought of the past, even if only for a moment.

One morning, as he was out with his mentors, resting on the beach after practicing a series of fast rolls, he suddenly remembered the past. "Where are they all, Sullivan?" he asked quietly.Now he was so used to the easy way these seagulls talked by heart to heart that there was no need to scream. "Why aren't more of our countrymen here? Well, in my hometown, there are..." "...thousands of seagulls. I know." Sullivan shook his head. "The only answer I can think of, Jonathan, is that you're one in a thousand good birds. Most of us are too slow to learn. We go from one world to another that's nearly identical, and immediately forget we're Where we came from, we don't care where we're going, we only think about the moment we're alive. Do you know how many lifetimes it takes us to realize that there are more important things in life than eating, drinking, fighting, and fighting for power? Joe, you have to go through thousands and tens of thousands of lives! Then go through a hundred lives before you realize that there is a so-called "perfection" in the world. Then, after a hundred lives, you can realize that the purpose of our life is to find perfection and make it come true. Of course, this law It still applies to us now: We choose another world based on what we learn in this world. If you don’t learn anything, the other world will be like this world, and you will have the same limitations and difficulties.”

He spread his wings and turned to face the sea breeze. "But you, Joe," said he, "learn so much at once that you don't need a thousand lives to get to this world." After a while, they practiced flying in the sky again.The formation roll is difficult to learn, because in the inversion, Jonathan has to think on his head and feet upside down, and at the same time he has to bend his wings upside down, and he has to bend just right, which is consistent with his instructor. "Let's do it again," Sullivan said, repeating, "Let's do it again." Finally, he said "Yes."Then they started to practice outer circle flips again.

One evening, those seagulls who did not fly at night stood together on the beach and meditated silently.Jonathan plucked up his courage and walked up to the elder seagull. It is said that the seagull will leave this world soon. "Jiang..." he began, a little nervous. The old seagull looked at him kindly. "Well, my boy!" Age did not weaken the elder, but made him stronger, and he could fly faster than any of the gulls, and he learned a skill that other gulls could only point to point. Gradually understand it. "Jiang, this world is not a paradise at all, is it?"

The elder smiled slightly in the moonlight. "You've learned a little more, Jonathan," he said. "So, what happens when we leave here? Where are we going? Isn't there such a place as heaven?" "No, Jonathan, there is no such place. Heaven is not space, nor time. Heaven is perfection." He was silent for a moment. "You fly fast, don't you?" "I...I'm interested in speed," Jonathan said, startled but proud that the elder had noticed him. "Jonathan, as soon as you reach perfection, you begin to reach heaven. That doesn't mean flying a thousand miles, or a million miles, or the speed of light. Because any number is finite, and perfection It's limitless. Perfect speed, boy, that's what it is."

Jiang showed no sign of expression, disappeared in a flash, and then reappeared at the water's edge fifty feet away, in just a split second.Then he disappeared again, and in less than a thousandth of a second, he was standing by Jonathan's shoulder again. "It's a joke," he said. Jonathan was a little dizzy.He forgot to ask about heaven. "How did you do it? How did it feel? How far can you fly?" "How far and how fast you want to fly is up to you." The elder said, "Where I want to go, how fast I want to fly, I just need to change my mind." He looked to the other side of the sea. "It's strange. Those gulls who despise perfection and only want to travel are so slow that they can't get anywhere. And those gulls who don't care about travel and want to be perfect are so fast that they go wherever they want. Remember , Jonathan, heaven is neither time nor space, because time and space are so meaningless. Heaven is..."

"Can you teach me to fly like that?" Jonathan the Seagull trembled, eager to conquer another unknown world. "Of course you can, as long as you want to learn." "I want to learn. When shall we start?" "You can start now if you want." "I want to learn to fly that way," said Jonathan, with a strange gleam in his eyes. "Tell me how to do it." Jiang spoke slowly, watching the young seagull carefully. "To fly as fast as thought, to go anywhere you want to go," he said, "then you have to feel like you're there first..." The secret, according to Jiang, was this: Jonathan stopped confining himself to a finite body with a pair of forty-two-inch wings whose movements could be marked on a nautical map.The secret is to know your own nature, perfect as an unwritten number, which transcends time and space and is everywhere. Jonathan desperately followed this order every day, from before dawn until late at night.But despite his best efforts, he remained where he was, not moving an inch. "Forget confidence!" Jiang said repeatedly. "It doesn't take faith to fly, it just needs to know what it is to fly. They're totally the same thing. Try again..."