Started the morning at 06:30 listening to U2’s ‘Walk On’ at near full volume on my iPod. I’m allowing myself music in between the formal sessions this morning. It’s sort of a reward for the last nine days of silence, I suppose.

The Root Institute funds a health centre next door and we were given a tour of the practice to see the great work being done in the community. With silence now broken, the class sat down together and shared a pleasant farewell lunch — finally getting a chance to learn a bit more about each other and to wish each other well on our various paths in life. Certainly it seems that everyone is leaving the site with a number of new tools in their toolbox and in a positive state of mind. If any of my former classmates are reading this, I’d love to hear from you in the comment box below.

So am I going to become a Buddhist monk? Well, no. Really. Not at all. I don’t pretend to have the answers to the unanswerables. And I’m OK with that. We learnt in the classroom that there is a Jack and a Jill. But maybe there is also a Joe. I am he. One thing I am sure of, though, is that after leaving this place, if only for a while, every laugh, joke, conversation, taste, movement, sight, sound, smell and touch will seem a little more precious than it was before. I’m a weird way, I guess I’m grateful to the Root Institute for that.

And so I walk out into my world of suffering with a feeling of elation. For now at least, in my life of ignorance I look forward to the fleeting moments of impermanent joy, no matter how short-lived they may be. Full volume, take it away Bono:

And love is not the easy thing.
The only thing that you can bring,
Is all that you can’t leave behind.
(cue guitars)
Walk On.

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