A Disturbance in Nirvana

Close your eyes. Breath. Just listen.

The wind is fluting between the stone giants of the Himalayas, murmuring through the
praying flags. The bells start ringing frenetically - they are calling for an awakening, calling for new
illusions.
Eyes open up, everything is swimming in white light, burning through the retina. It took a
while before he could see the blue of the sky. He heard exhalations that rhymed to his own
inhalations – strange, yet, somehow familiar. He turned to find a boy, unknown to him, deeply
immersed in meditation.
” Longing hurts, doesn´t it?” The stranger whispered, opening his eyes - pupils like ash left
after a campfire were revealed therein. He stroked his hand across his bald head as if he was getting
used to something.
“My hair was almost golden when my parents abandoned me in the monastery, yesterday
that is, now I am like everyone else…” he held up the flat of his hand and sent some strings of hair
to scatter with the wind.
The ringing of a bell was heard from inside the temple. An adult monk came out tiptoeing.
“The Great Lama will end his fifteen-year-old promise of silence,” he whispered, “he will
answer one question from each one of you, samaneras. He emphasized how important it would be
for your highness to participate in the ceremony, Little Lama,” he bowed to the boy, who smoothly
rose, flapping his red robe across his shoulder, he hesitated to walk away from the new samanera.
“Shall you not come?”
“He got no answers to my questions,” the stranger said curtly. Little Lama squinted at him,
but then walked forth. Behind him, he heard, “ask him...if Nirvana is the goal and the origin, why
the chaotic circle to get back where it all started?”
The question kept gnawing in Little Lama´s head as he entered the temple. The Great Lama
was in meditative stance before three vast statues of the Buddha at the end of the hall. There was a
great painting of a dragon, decorating the yellow long-sided wall of the hall, and his wormy body
followed every step taken by the Little Lama, until, finally, reaching the dragon-head - its mouth
agape to swallow Siddhartha, who faced the danger with a smile, while remaining in meditative
bliss.
“And the great kings came to him and sought his wisdom, all decorated in gold before his
nakedness, finding that all their power, wealth, and battles were all but a child´s game for him,
forcing them to ask themselves ´what if it all was for the sake of him, and not for me?´” The elder
monk, known as The Great Lama, said to a samanera in late puberty. The pupil bowed and walked
away for the next in line to ask one question. The Great Lama listened to their question with a
vacant smile, whispering things to their ears. In between, he would throw seeds inside a cage where
three budgerigar- yellow, blue, and green - flexed their wings with curious expressions thrown at a
black cat, who, in his turn, was licking his mouth. Little Llama took a step forward, taking his spot
between two friends his own age – about ten. One was ´Sorrow´, named for his crying face; it had
been stuck in time ever since abandoned in the monastery by his parents; then there was Fish,
whose body was always soaked in sweat.
They all bowed to the Buddhas, kissing their feet, ringing the bells, and then they bowed
before the Great Lama, who carried his discrete smile glued on a face of wax. Little Lama hesitated,
then he asked the question;
“Great Lama, if all creation originated from harmony in Nirvana, why did it wish away from
that harmony?”
“My young samanera, it is all because of disturbances in Nirvana.”
“What disturbances?”
“I have not reached those depths; maybe I need another ten lives to answer your question.”
He laughed merrily from his belly, but it did not mitigate the uneasiness growing inside Little Lama.
This was noticed by the master, changing his face into a sterner expression.
“The great Buddha, “ he pointed to one statue that expressed joy, “told us to seek to treat the
poison from the arrow before asking whom it was that shot the arrow, and further, what was his
intentions.”
“But…how does one know what this poison is?” Sorrow asked.
” Underneath it all, Mara might lure, and she will come to you with a smile or a song. After
all, suffering always presents itself with a smile, or else men would turn away, right? Therefore she
comes in beauty´s veil, but you know what hides underneath it all? He stretched for candles, the fire
flickering between his fingers, and he made gestures with his hands which created a shadow beast
on the wall; It wandered through a garden of painted flowers, slowly approaching the budgerigars.
The orange glow of the fire made the sweat on Fish´s face glow like pearls. The Great Lama smiled,
watching their nervous faces, but his face once more changed to a concerned expression, observing
that Little Lama was still glancing inwards. The Great Lama blew the fire, and the shadow
vanished. The cat yawned, the budgerigar said “Tjo-tjo! Tjo-tjo!”, and the boys laughed. Only Little
Lama lingered on to his doubts:

If you are poisoned, ought you not to know why it was done, and by whom?

Next day, they walked towards the newcomer, he was meditating on a branch growing from a Bodhi
tree, that was leaning, almost horizontally, from a precipice. The boys glanced downwards; there
were screeching falcons upon white clouds beneath their feet - if the branch snapped it would mean
certain death. They were all stunned by the peaceful expression on the newcomer´s face. One could
hear the tree cracking and moaning.
“Who…” Fish uttered.
“They called me ´Grey-eyed´,” he pointed far-out across the horizon, towards a distant
mountaintop, looming over all others, “There I was born, foreigners call it Everest, and they say
there are no higher heights on this World. My parents used to host men from foreign lands, just
before they wandered off to die up there.”
“Great Lama says that these are arrogant men who will only find the triviality of their
suffering when they get up there, for what tragedy it is to have no higher tops to climb, and carrying
the weight of that realization most die on their way down.” Little Lama said.
” Have your Great Lama ever been to the top of the World?” The Grey-eyed boy asked.
“Have you?”
“No, but let me tell you a story...one day there was a man who arrived at our stone-brick-
house, all covered in snow, a wandering corpse, both in appearance and manners. We gave him
butter-tea, his greyish skin immediately reddened, and his pupils started to flicker around as if they
were unstuck, with a will of their own. He looked at his hands as if the matter was a thing he had
forgotten. We asked him many questions, and he answered us with a strange story. This man had
found a graveyard of men much like himself: climbers, adventurers, men from foreign lands
eternally frozen just before they could realize their dream. He decided to carry them all to the top,
feeling their lost cause to be his own burden. One by one, they were tied to his back and placed at
the top to gaze down at the World. He imagined they would, at last, find peace there, but when the
moon smiled at the sun…” he paused to observe the audience´s reaction, “they all came back to
life.”
” No one can come back to life after being dead!”
“I am sure my eyes did not lie to me…some days later they started to come down to our
humble abode, men who had slept for so long they could no longer recall their names, nor where
they came from, all with this ravenous hunger to live. These half-deads would empty our winter-
stack with blackened fingers. One explained how he had been in a deep and everlasting
nothingness, only an unbearable longing for life had remained. Then he bit off the head of a chicken
in our courtyard, eating it raw, and spitting out small bones. I have never seen a hungrier man.”
Grey-eye lay down on the trunk to stare up at the sky, touching his belly with his hands.
“And what is the point of this story??”
“The point? Every story ends with a dot, only surviving if it finds believers to carry it on in
their hearts,” He gazed at their thirsty expressions, “But, I might have a better story…” He faked a
yawn, stretching up his arms, “Recalling makes my gut scream in pain, I now yearn for my
mother´s chicken soup – the Hungry Buddha – fetch me this dish from the market, and I will tell
you my story.”
“We shouldn’t.” Sorrow said.
“No, you really shouldn’t…you should go back to your meditations!” a white fog, suddenly,
swept over in waves, his apparition dissolving - he wasn’t there - he was there - he wasn’t there.

Next day began with a screech, monks exclaiming that the budgerigar had escaped.
In the courtyard, the boys found The Great Lama, not in his usual meditative trance, but
uncharacteristically lolling his head back and forth, mumbling to himself. They sneaked by him, not
to awaken something strange, they had ever known him as the epitome of unattachment. Instead,
they found the newcomer, sitting on his usual lotus flower position, a little closer to the branch´s
edge than before.
Little Lama unfolded his red robes, to bring forth a hidden bowl, and a vapor arose to spread
the aroma of curry. Fish´s stomach groaned to this smell.
” Do not worry, friends, I share!” He said while carefully licking the slime between two
bites, making munching sounds, wallowing in the gore. Fish shook his head.
“Either everything goes down my stomach, or, you can share my pleasure, it makes no
difference, the bird is already dead!”
”It was you! You opened the cage and released the birds…” Fish screamed out.
Embers of fire lurked in the stranger´s grey eyes, while he pointed with his index finger,
they followed its direction to find the yellow budgerigar hobbling around a rock with red stripes on
its wings. A shadow loomed over the poor bird, the black cat monstrously introducing himself to the
scene, high-shouldered when he erected himself on the rock. Its green eyes were blazing, and as the
bird flexed its injured wings, a black paw reached out, nonchalantly holding the bird down to the
ground. The bird gave an anguished whistle; it twisted its small neck to witness the monster which
had condemned it to a slow death. The Grey-eyed boy looked amusedly at his audience while
licking his fingers.
“Oh noooo.!” Sorrow whimpered, tears flowing down in a delta of rivulets.
The cat was now licking the little bird, holding it between its paws, as if he held a little
kitten. “Tji-Tjo!” was the only thing the bird could utter, before the cat carried it off, vanishing into
the reeds. The boys stared intently at the newcomer.
” Don’t look at me like that! I only offered them freedom, to use their wings to its original
purpose! They were in truth begging me for freedom, flexing and crashing their wings against the
bars; wanting to be part of a story of their own device, and the thing about a good story is: it might
just end between the sharp teeth of a monster!”
“Master says that those birds could have been our own mothers in another life!” Sorrow
stamped on the ground.
” And the cat, might it not also be somebody´s mother? Who will feed its hunger?”
Fish went forth to inspect the crime scene, red circles on the stone were all that remained
from the game, like ritualistic patterns. A sacrifice had been made; its consequences now revealed to
all participants. Little Lama went to embrace his shoulders.
” Don’t worry, the cat will be the bird in the next life.”
” And in the life after that, will he be a cat once more? Maybe your mothers who all dumped
you in this monastery…will also, in another life, feel how it is to be the abandoned child, doomed to
a life consisting of nothing but eternal contemplations about nothing!” Grey-eyed said, swallowing
the last bit of chicken, eyes closed when he chewed - so very, very slowly. They could hear the
juices flowing in his mouth.
” And who are you to know everything?” Sorrow asked, wiping tears from his face.
” I’ll answer that by telling a story, as was promised…”
” I don’t want to listen no more, just go away!” Fish said.
“That is good, then you go and try to save these two birds while I tell my story, be wary not
to fall!” he pointed towards the remaining birds, whom both sat at the tree´s edge, and Fish
followed his instructions with wary feet.
Grey-eyed thus turned to his remaining audience, “Anyway, it seems the mountain climbers
spread rumors about me when they returned to their homeland. And so, soldiers traveled very far to
find me, they measured my skull, studied my hair and my pupils, and they came to the
understanding that I was the person they had been looking for. I was the bridge between men and
Gods, or so they told my parents when they brought me to their flying machine…”
The boys´ mouths were gaped open, “First living dead, and now flying machines?” Sorrow
asked.
“Believe what you want, we flew over landscapes of every sort: deserts, lakes, mountains,
green pastures that would never end. Oh, I saw such wonders on this journey; I witnessed a World
in rapid transformation, men able to build machines, and machines that could build more machines!
Each man was like a king of his own palace, you had to see it with your own eyes to believe it…”
He interrupted and turned to Fish, smiling with the right corner of his lip, “look at his fear of falling,
as if he had anything to lose!” He chuckled through his nostrils.
Fish was crawling, slipping and holding for dear life to the stem of the tree. The clouds
below had opened up to reveal rivers that looked like the thin wrinkles on the flat of one´s hand, he
froze on to the trunk, lying there, trembling, as one of the leaves.
” Anyway, they came in thousands - no! - Tens of thousands…all to see me! Their eyes were
blue like the sky and their hair was made of gold, all marching in sync like ants. The parade was in
my honor, and they worshipped me. Their trumpets sang like a hundred elephants, and young ladies
came out with flowers to decorate the necks of young men, all carrying deadly weapons across their
shoulders. Then came the great machines of war, grunting loudly like old dragons in pain, and their
long necks could shoot fire far beyond the horizon. Now, great flying machines swarmed the sky, so
many that they were to almost cast a shadow upon the sun itself, and the crowd gestured with their
arms to salute them - they were like a single image of the perfect man, multiplied into many,
through invisible mirrors, while marching. They all did so to please their great king, who stood
beside me on the balcony. A man with a strange mustache, he made furious speeches that made the
Earth tremble. A single gesture with his hand made the World pause, subduing the scene to silence
as if one had been awoken from a loud and obnoxious dream. Now, you could only hear the flags
blowing against the wind. And the mustached king gestured with that same arm to welcome me, and
all his subjects did the same, and I was declared the God they had traveled across the World to
find.”
“If so…why are you here?” Fish asked, hyperventilating.
“They sent me back so that I could work as a God in my own kingdom. For some reason, my
parents imagined this was a place worthy for a God to live, and I guess it will do…”
“You’re no God!”
” I´m not?”
” Prove that you’re a God!”
“You clearly don’t know much about Gods, we get our powers when subjects show faith…I
cannot prove anything to a non-believer!” he wandered with rapid feet across the branch, as Grey-
eyed approached the edge, the tree dangerously bent downwards, and Fish, clamoring to dear life,
almost slipped over, but the two other boys held his feet, dragging him back to safe ground. The
green budgerigar flew up, only to land into the palm of the newcomer´s hands. He whispered some
secret to its ears and then he cupped his hands and shook it. He then opened it to reveal an empty
hand. After a deliberate pause, he blew into his hands once more, and suddenly, both budgerigars
appeared, merrily picking at each other.
“You want them to exist? Or shall I make them vanish?” He blew once more and they
witnessed how they vanished as dots in the great blue sky.
” All creatures will choose freedom; at last, they need only be aware that there is a door out
of prison. Take a step over that edge and I will make you all fly away from this place.”
”Y-y-you think we are dumb. You are but a trickster!” Sorrow said.
 ” No, you’re clearly not worthy of my time. I got millions of believers. You come back when
you get tired of prison!”
He took another step to the furthest branch of the tree, where it grew very thin, and closed
his eyes. A strong wind was gusting, and he seemed to hoover up and down on nothing but air, the
tree gnawing, and whining but never breaking. When he opened his eyes the setting sun reflected on
his eyes, and the pupils were enlarged to become black wells. The boys took careful steps
backward, before turning and dashing back towards the monastery.

Days went by, and Grey-eyed uttered not so much as a word, seldom searching for eye contact with
the other boys. He just meditated in silence, as if he was the most devoted among monks. Thus, the
boys went back to the old routine –eat rice, sleep, meditate, eat rice – but it was not the same
anymore. The sound of “Aoooouuuummm!” was no longer a call for harmony, but rather; a
disturbance, summoning nightmarish beasts. Little Llama fantasized about being a cat - a tiger - a
worm - a warrior - a God – and he always left meditation sessions with the taste of blood on his
tongue.
They would glance towards the tree, with longing hearts, it soon became clad in yellow
leaves, and then red, then brown, and at last it became completely undressed – always uninhabited.
One night, Little Lama glanced through the gaping hole on the wall, there was a blood moon
filling out the entirety of the frame. Its round shape still burning through his eyelids when he closed
his eyes. A well was filled with blood. He could see a shadow beast with gaping mouth floating
upward, fully armed with sharpened teeth, and Little Llama could not fly away, his wings had been
cut off, he jerked up from bed with a shriek, drenched in a pool of sweat. He walked out to the
courtyard and washed the sweat from his face, and there he saw it: two grey eyes staring at him in
the interludes between the ripples. When the water lay still, all that remained were grey stones lying
at the bottom of the well. He sniffed, there was this smell of burned tissue. A great fire was mirrored
on the water´s surface. He turned to see the monastery consumed by flames. And he heard the
screams from his fellow monks burning inside, even the Great Lama was screaming out of agony,
and smoke rose from his own skin, his robes in flame, his skin smoldering away in clumps of ash.
He closed his eyes in meditative contemplation, looked over at the Grey-eyed, meditating at his
Bodhi tree once more, smiling with the left corner of his mouth. Left? - this must be a dream!
He awoke to a silence that only stone could speak, the wind fluting through small cavities on
the walls. It was as if an unknown master had been strumming a dramyin inside his heart, and he
knew he could not get rid of the master. He glanced over to his sleeping friends; Fish was making
squeaking sounds, like a puppy in distress, and he stroked his friend´s head, “Soon it will be over,”
he whispered to his ear.
The following day, Little Lama brought his friends to the Grey-eyed, who was sitting once more on
his favored tree. The outer branch of the tree was broken, hanging there like some dislocated limb.
“If we fly, will you tell us how to become Gods?”
” Haven´t I always stayed true to my promises?”
” Yes…” Fish said, glancing down at the precipice, his mouth quivering. He turned, awaiting
a sign from Little Lama.
“Don´t worry, I have never failed, but you all have to jump at the same time. If anyone of
you hesitates, the others will fall and die. Flying…is much more exciting than meditation.” The
right corner of his mouth smiling.
Little Lama took a single step forward, and soon they all followed him in a mad rush
towards the edge of the precipice, the red robes dissolving, wavering like capes behind them – they
looked like exotic birds opening up their wings for the first time - and then! - just before the edge,
the Little Lama suddenly halted and slided one step away from the edge. Before him, he bared
witness to his friends´ final farewell from this life. There was no scream. There was no cursing.
Only the howling wind. He looked down at two red dots rapidly diminishing in size, until they
became one with the foam of white clouds.
He turned, ever so slowly, towards the grey-eyed,
“They are now free to be reborn to new mother-birds, free to fly, isn’t it so?”
” Yes, how about you?” The Grey-eyed´s strange asymmetrical smile broadened, the right
mouth twisting like a wall, “How did you convince them?”
“I broke that outer branch of the tree, and told them how I saw you levitate back to
meditative pose when it broke…”
” And…they believed you?”
” I have never lied to them, never lied to anyone in my entire life.”
“Aha, I see,” now, for the first time, the smile covered the entire mouth, “a well-prepared lie
then. Very good.”
” So, can I hear a story??”
“Close your eyes. Breath. Just listen! The World is whispering that story to our ears; about
small and great things, how it bears to contain every single thing.”
Little Lama wandered towards the tree, past Grey-eyed, taking catlike steps towards the
thinner branches of the tree, and there he crossed his legs in the lotus position. Day turned to night,
and grey eyes took the shape of shining white moons in the dark. Below his feet, great sharp
mountaintops pointed upwards, like predator´s teeth, aiming to swallow the entire night sky; the
moon was already half-eaten, and the stars lay like crumbles across heaven´s dining table. Each boy
was sitting on a branch of his own, buoying up and down in a harmonious rhythm that followed the
wind´s piping, until they oscillated into one single silhouette - a black meditative figure cut out
from the cardboard of a starlit sky. They could now look into each other´s mind - where humans
played with each other, much like cats play with birds.

By Matheus Ervall