Dainan frowned as a slight breeze tickled his scalp. In this perfectly manicured slice of paradise, where every leaf, every cloud and every sound was controlled by the master's will, for there to be anything unexpected was truly out of the ordinary.

When an even stronger gust of wind actually ruffled his Kasaya, he opened his eyes with a preemptive glare aimed at the source of the disturbance. Which of the junior monks would be bored and brave enough to disturb him in his meditation?

The glare was soon replaced with a curious gaze as he realised that he was alone in the shrine room, and the ornamental door that guarded it was still very much sealed. Curiosity became alarm when another ripple of air disturned the flames of the candles and the smoke rising from sticks of incense at the base of the Buddha, with no cause in sight.

The Buddha was a remarkable accomplishment, apparently carved from a single piece of giant jade and towering over Dianan. The craftsmanship was exquisite but what made it remarkable was that the Buddha sat with a single arm outstretched, and in that palm sat another Buddha. The smaller Buddha was carved from the same jade as the larger one and was identical to it in every aspect other than size. And in the smaller Buddha's palm there was seated one even smaller, but still identical.

As far as Dianan could tell after decades of study, it was in fact Buddhas all the way down. Even the smallest Buddha that he could still discern was still identical, and still grasping yet a smaller one.

The space above the Buddha suddenly warped, looking nothing so much as if it was being viewed through a window that had just cracked. The crack in space made no sound that Dianan could hear as it appeared, only to fade away and reform a few feet lower. Fade, reform, fade, all the while heading straight down towards the Buddha.

Even as it passed into the Buddha, nothing else happened at first. Dainan even briefly considered that perhaps he was still meditating and this was actually just a vision, but he'd never experienced a vision as vivid and lifelike as this?

POP! A rush of wind, and darkness enveloped the shrine room when the cracked space reached the center of the Buddha.

Seconds later, the door to the shrine room was pushed open by acolytes that had heard the commotion, and as light was reintroduced Dianan could only dumbfoundedly stare at the raised platform where the Buddha was seated. Or used to be seated, as the platform was now decidedly empty!

In a small section of a vast empty space, a small microscopically small jade Buddha suddenly popped into existence at the trailing edge of a whirlpool of indescribable objects. Followed rapidly by ever larger versions of the same Buddha, all rapidly joining the maelstrom of forgotten objects. The whirlpool, the only discernible feature in this apparently empty reality, moved on…