Nourishing Our Hungry Ghosts by Rev. Cathi Toldi

This time of year, the days grow shorter and the air colder. Our attention begins to turn inward. Some of us feel a bit anxious at the thought of the impending increase in darkness. We invite light with candles. We seek the warm-hearted company of friends.

Many cultures believe this is the time when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is most thin. The Celtic people celebrated this with Samhain—a time to honor the darkness, as well as their ancestors.  It was also a time to face unwanted emotions and fears. This was the precursor to Halloween, as well as the Catholic All Soul’s Day, now an international celebration where people pay respects for their dead.  

 Buddhist cultures honor this tradition as well. In ancient China, festivals to honor the dead happened in the seventh lunar month. In Japan, and Japanese-American temples, the ancestors are celebrated in July, as part of the Urabone, or Obon, ceremony.

At Santa Cruz Zen Center, and others across the U.S., we do this during Sejiki, at the end of October, to coincide with Halloween.

 We set out altars to honor our ancestors, and also to offer food to the Hungry Ghosts. These are imaginary beings with long skinny necks, their throats too small for swallowing. They travel through space and time endlessly yearning, never satisfied.

 The plight of the Hungry Ghost is a powerful teaching for us to consider. Don’t we all have some way that we feel like we are forever yearning, never satisfied? This is at the heart of the suffering of addiction, whether it be to a substance, a behavior, or an ideal. We look outside of ourselves for something to relieve our anxiety, our loneliness.

 Some Buddhist literature suggests that the Hungry Ghosts are a metaphor for trying to fulfill our illusory desires, I believe there is another angle here, where desires are not necessarily illusory. Desire is also part of our healthy biological attraction towards things that are wholesome, such as the desire for food, drink, rest, love. 

 There are those that do not have access to food, drink, rest and love. Their yearning is not in the realm of the Hungry Ghosts. Their yearning is the need for fulfillment of basic human needs.

 But many of us who do have access to abundant resources are still yearning, because we don’t know how to be satisfied. There are traditional images of the Hungry Ghosts seated at a food-laden table, and starving, because their throats are too small to take in the food. Many of us are surrounded by sources of nourishment, and opportunities to rest and love. But either we don’t see this, because we’re too preoccupied with our complaints; or, we just always want that one more fix of the object of our desire, hoping that this time it will bring us peace.

 In this situation, liberation can come from expanding our field of perception to notice the gifts that surround us. It can come from turning towards sources of nourishment and letting ourselves take them in, letting ourselves be satisfied. Allowing the sensation of this feels wholesome. And this is enough.

 When we allow ourselves to feel satisfied, we can shift the focus of our attention off of our own craving and grasping, and focus instead on offering nourishment to others.  

 Whether or not you create an actual altar in your home, to celebrate Sejiki, or All Souls Day, or Samhain, it’s a good time of year to make offerings to our ancestors, and to the Hungry Ghosts, within and without. May all beings be nourished. May all beings be free from suffering.