In
Buddhist teachings, being
reincarnated as a hungry ghost, or “Petti-visaya”, was the result of
overattachment to form.
If you
died still
clinging to the
meaningless illusions of this world as though they, not the
Clear Light of Oneness, were your Self, then you might earn yourself a
starting-point the
next time around as a
Peta or 'hungry ghost': one who could not be satisfied. There was
even a story about a
Zen monk who was
too attached to his robe, and so he was reincarnated as a hideous hungry ghost who wore a monk's robe.
The hungry ghosts had, in the
tales, more than just "great bellies" and "
mouths like the eyes of needles". They were also beset by many painful,
pussy and
truly icky disorders, like huge
bleeding ulcers, or
knots and
goiters in their throats that kept them from
swallowing. Some of the
nastier ones had to subsist only by
drinking the pus from the goiters that stopped up their throats. They were also
predisposed to being
unable to find food or water -- sometimes they would go years only able to scrounge up a
little chunk of phlegm for themselves and their families, or would spend their whole lives
eating dirt and drinking only their own
sweat and urine.
The Buddhists were gentle souls, but they were
graphic little buggers too.
The
admonishment that the hungry ghosts serves to deliver to students of
Buddhism is one of
minding one's thoughts and not allowing
oneself to forget that
Big Truth ll good
trancendentalists are so fond of:
All is transitory, except the One Eternal Thingy, whatever that is. To mistake your
thoughts,
preferences,
material attachments and/or
opinions for yourSelf was a sin that could land you a
life sentence spent wandering the
Realm, forever in search of more and more to
fulfill you,
unable to
realize that
you are already whole.
The link between
consumerism and hungry
ghostism is
too obvious to node, but perhaps also
too scary to ignore.