Outside the Walls
By Niall Twohig
Da came to me in Dream the night before I was to teach the Matrix. I saw him on the other side of my bedroom window. Condensation obscured his features, but it was clearly him. I saw that. And he saw me from the other side.
We stared into each other, searchingly, as if looking into a misty mirror. I felt that swelling of joy mixed with sadness knowing, even in dream, that this was a semblance of my waking room, a semblance of a waking life where Da was dead.
Our encounter remained mostly wordless, except for one clear message:
“Niall,” he said, “You have to read Ecclesiastes.”
Ecclesiastes. It's strange because that word isn’t in my lexicon. But it was certainly in Da’s. Once a priest always a priest. The Bible remained a constant companion alongside other spiritual books. I’d often find him nestled in his home, snug on his sofa and surrounded with these books, dogeared and bookmarked with little reminders like “Tell Niall about this!” or “Have Niall read!”
So, when his dream message came it didn’t seem supernatural. It felt normal, familiar. “Ok, Da,” I thought as I awoke. I took my mostly unopened Bible from the shelf and found the Book of Ecclesiastes, a book I’d later discover is among the books of wisdom. Flipping it open, I scanned the first verses, landing on a line that has stayed with me these last years:
For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.
“Thanks, Da,” I said aloud as if still inhabiting dream. I had been uncertain about how to teach The Matrix, but Da led me to words I needed. They said the same thing as the image I had in my slides, that of Neo awakening from “reality” to the desert of the real. Seeing that similarity, I was reminded that this story was not new, even when it appeared in 1999. It’s an old story, indeed. As old as wisdom.
* * *
For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow.
A bleak quote at first glance. The bleakness of it certainly rang true for Da. Nestled in his room, surrounded by books, he sat with the sadness of the world. The heaviness showed in the arch of his back and furrow of his brow.
But there’s more to that quote. I’ve come to see that over the years. As have my students. One gave me a framed print of that quote she had designed. At first I was taken aback. “Bleak words to frame,” I thought. But then I saw that she had set the words on a subtle background of stars. The milky way.
To show the other side of the quote, the luminous side, I tell my students about Siddhartha who became the Buddha. I tell them the story of his princely beginnings and his first journey outside the palace walls. It’s a story I’ve found myself refashioning for our times and to meet my students’ needs.
My version is one I wish I could tell Da. I wish I could sit down with him in that little nest of books and recite it to him. I wish I could tell it to him in a way that would soften his brow and straighten his back. Perhaps I will, one of these days, when we visit each other in Dream. For now, I’ll share that story with you.
* * *
Once upon a time, a child was born into this world with the title of prince. His parents, the king and queen, loved their little swaddled lad very much. They held him tight and wished they could hold him like that for eternity.
In an attempt to realize that wish, they created their boy’s world to mirror their tight embrace. They decorated his room with fine silks and lit it like a warm womb. He ate the finest meals from gem-encrusted plates. He played in a paradise of carefully curated gardens. He had the best teachers in all the land. From spiritual gurus, he learned yoga and prayer. From learned astronomers, he gained knowledge of each star that circled over the palace. From champion warriors, he learned to wrestle and shoot the bow. From poets, he learned of love.
The king and queen made sure to hide all that didn’t belong in that tight embrace: all that was ugly and scary. They restricted the gurus from teaching savasana. They told the astronomer never to speak of a star’s death. They banned the wrestler and archer from speaking of the use of their arts in war. And the poet was told never to speak of love lost or heartache.
They even hid away the realities of the body. When a noble fell sick, they were never allowed in the prince’s presence. When a servant became too old, his service was no longer required inside the palace walls. When loved ones died, the prince was told that they had simply gone to a higher room in the palace.
Never was this prince allowed to venture outside his reality. The only way he knew of an “outside” was the comings and goings of the servants. They would clean. They would cook. They would sweep. And then they departed into what he thought was non-existence.
All of this changed when the prince mustered courage to speak to the servant who drove the chariot. He had watched this man faithfully tending to that mighty vehicle. He caught glimpses of him driving through that mysterious door to oblivion, then returning.
“I want to go through those doors,” the prince told the charioteer in a mousy voice that grew more determined as he spoke.
At first the charioteer was struck with horror. He knew the consequences of doing this, the most taboo of acts. Yet, hearing the prince’s genuineness, he was touched.
“Come, lad. I have a place to be. Accompany me.”
And they went: through the door, outside the palace walls, beyond the only reality the prince knew.
The prince couldn’t make sense of the sights he saw. His senses were overloaded. All he could focus on were human forms, familiar yet so alien from what he knew.
“What is that three-legged thing?” he asked as they passed an old man, bent by time, ragged and hobbling along on a stick.
“That is a man grown old. Old age comes for us all. But it comes for us sooner outside the palace walls, for our work requires us to bend and stoop so that the palace stands strong and shines bright.”
They drove on.
“What is that thing pockmarked like the leaves in my gardens?”
“That is a woman stricken with plague. Illness comes for us all. But it comes for us sooner outside the palace walls, for we cannot shelter in the safety of the palace we have built and cleaned.”
They drove on, until they came to a funeral procession.
“What is that thing those people carry?”
The charioteer had no words. And the prince was stunned by his long silence. Finally, the charioteer spoke:
“That is no thing, my prince, my lad. It is the beautiful vehicle that carried my wife’s spirit. More beautiful than any royal chariot. You see, my lad, death comes for us all. But it came for her sooner. Too soon. Too soon for us outside the palace walls.”
With those words, the prince saw something he had never seen before. The charioteer’s face opened. Opened. Opened. The full warmth of that face gushed forth. And this opened something in the prince that he never knew in that paradise his loving parents had built. Free of the palace’s false embrace, he embraced his newfound friend.
The time had come to return. They circled back to the palace by night when the stars were full. They came across one last human form: a figure seated, cross-legged, beneath a bodhi tree.
“What is that with a face so full of joy in this land that knows such suffering?”
“That is a monk,” the charioteer said, “He has renounced all that those inside the palace chase. He finds riches in the bird song above and in the rollie-polies at his feet. Those bent low, and those who are sick, come to him just to see his smile. Tonight, when I return you to the palace, I will sit with him and feel the presence of my beloved in those stars circling over our head.”
The prince spoke plainly and more deliberately than he ever had. “I’d like to sit with you rather than return.” And they did. They did.
