"fart". Here goes:
A month-long silent meditation retreat is harder than it sounds. I was really cavalier going in, like, "Whatever, I got this, it's just a month." Hah. Someone stole my winter boots 2 hours after I got to the retreat center (in the high Rocky mountains, December), and it only got harder after that. Of the 60 other people on this retreat, the person who annoyed me the most was a 75-year-old man who consistently took other people's labeled meditation cushions and dropped shrine room blankets in the middle of the hallway outside for me to trip on. He was crass, unhelpful (we had jobs every day), and flirted with women 1/3 his age (but not me, he had the sense to stay away).
One day, about 2 weeks in, I got a blazing headache during the morning meditation and went to sit in the hallway for a bit. Suddenly, from the stairwell to my right, came a string of the loudest farts I'd ever heard, like cannonball fire across a calm sea. I looked up and saw the old cusion stealing curmudgeon, shamelessly cutting one fart after another. He cleared his throat at the end of this exercise, like an exclamation point. Oh, and he carried out this routine right next to a gorgeous painting of Amitabha Buddha; essentially, he farted in the Buddha's face. To hate this man, or even feel frustrated by him, ran counter to the point of the meditation retreat, and to my path as a Buddhist, and a human. So, I took a deep breath, choked a little, and walked back into the shrine room to meditate some more.
