On my last afternoon and Wat Klegonwan, the sky darkens, rains begin, thunder crescendos, the lights go out, and when trees begin crashing into the temple it becomes clear that this is no ordinary storm.

The next day, a monk who has lived here for 23 years tells me it was the worst storm he had ever seen. When the storm starts, everyone but me retreats to the ground floor of the temple. I sprint to the third-floor balcony to spend my last afternoon of daylight witnessing the wrathy rage of it all.

When trees start falling into the rail, I decide I best go indoors. Afternoon meditation is canceled, but this being my last afternoon, I go to the second floor of the temple to the meditation hall to spend the storm searching for that serenity. I expect to be alone, but when I open the door I see that Mott is already in the lotus, facing not the golden Buddhas, but the back door windows depicting what seems to be scenes from a hurricane — trees batting against each other as if trying to run away from roots that force them to remain in the meteorological mayhem.

I sit down and inhale. I remember my first afternoon here a week before. Here in the meditation hall, I had tried unsuccessfully all day to calm my mind. I had seen Mott that day, appearing in the windows as he made a slow meditative walk around the temples circular balcony. Little did I know then what a good friend he would become. I open my eyes two hours later the storm has settled some. Mott is gone. I’ve been concentrated enough not to hear him leave. Outside branches and trees lay everywhere. This was a storm that must have drew its inspiration from watching Nature’s Wrath on Nat Geo.

The novices and I clear the essential walkways of debris and then go to bed. The next morning I need to recite a modified chant, relieving me of three of the five hours I have taken  — do not eat after 12 PM, do not have sex with people, do not Sing-a-Song. I cannot wait to Sing-a-Song. . .

Whether related to the previous night’s storm or another strange, unrelated occurrence that adds more cinematic flair to my departure, winged termites have conquered the morning. They swarm and cover any lights. Turning on a flashlight for even a moment brings tens of thousands of them in an unreasonable swarm. As I needed to read much of my chant for the Abbot, this presents quite a debacle, as the Abbot’s reception chamber is in the open air.

I get through the first two chants in the early morning darkness. Then I have no choice but to flip my headlamp on to recite further. As I am wearing white, I am a particular attraction to these lights obsessed insects. It’s like a Buddhist Fear Factor special. They cover every inch of me. They crawl into my ears and nose. Termites scurry up my sleeves and even my ass crack is fair play for these tenacious termites. Later, they will disappear after the first light of dawn.

When we leave, Mott translates what the Abbot has told me, “You have a strong will and I wonder why you don’t stay here seven years instead of seven days. Just remember that the Dharma is not any place. It is in your body and in your mind. You can find it anywhere through meditation.”

As the sun rises, Mott and I walk up the mountain to the temple at the top. We climb over trees left in the road from the prior evening’s wrath. This is goodbye, likely forever. “Tomorrow,” Mott says, “I am leaving the other novices and will go live in a guti (a monk house). The Abbot has agreed to train me. For one month, I will eat very little and sleep very little and only meditate. I hope I can survive.”

“If anyone can, it’s you,” I say, because Mott goes deeper, sits stiller than the other novices and most of the monks when he meditates.

Esse invites me shortly before I leave to see his guti. There is barely any room from inside because it is so full of his drawings of famous months, sketched in a spot on realism despite him never having had a single lesson.

“I give to you bone of the Buddha,” he offers to me as a parting gift the glass cylinder allegedly containing a bone of the Buddha. His mother had given it to him. It is one of his most valuable possessions and I feel unworthy to receive such a gift but also unable to deny him the gift of generosity he extends to me.

Later I fasten the straps on my pack, readying it to go. 11-year-old Nom comes up with a big smile. He hands me some wildflowers, a bottle of iced coffee, and a bag of garlic bread. With him watching, I tie the flowers to the top of my pack. Time to return to the world.

On the hike up the hill, I said something like “back to the real world,” to Mott. On the way down he said, “it’s funny you call it that, because for me this is the real world,” leaving, I’m just grateful that places, people, and experiences like the past week can be part of my world.

With some disappointment, I notice that my back is barely better than when I came here. It’s back to the real world, but still not back to my real life. I still can’t play a guitar without pain, can barely carry my bag, and am sure that when I am back at a computer, I will again be unable to type without pain.

But I’ve gained a perspective here. That even if these things never return to me, my life is still not over. And one day, it will be. I’m not there yet, but I need to learn to be in love with every instant. I need to learn to accept what comes. I can get so attached to things, my health, my music, my writing, that when they are gone, the whole world seems gray. One morning meditating, I thought, “When you fully let these things go, when you learn to be just as happy without them, that’s when you’ll deserve to have them again.”

See more from my series, “Being Buddhist in Thailand“