Yesterday (20 August) was the first day of the seventh month on the Chinese Lunar calendar. The Chinese believe that on this month of the year, hungry ghosts will take a month-long break from hell to get away from the unimaginable heat, and roam our world for earthly food and fun.
Of course, the living, or rather the Chinese, will not sit still and allow these famished and possibly sex-starved spirits to enter their homes and mess up their lives. To prevent the wandering spirits from disturbing those who are still alive, offerings, live entertainments, foods, prayers and chantings are arranged throughout the month. The scale of mass pacification is as big as the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration each year.
Who’s Hungrier?
According to some scriptures, hungry ghosts are often described as having a tiny head with a tiny mouth supported by a long and very narrow throat. They have a disproportionately large belly but long and thin limbs. Since they can never get enough food in their mouth to fill their bloated guts, they exists not just in perpetual starvation, but also constant greed, fear and frustration. Imagine trying to stuff food through a straw when you are almost dying from hunger and you get an idea of how it feels like to be one.
But wait, don’t that sound pretty close to how many of us live, albeit on a less gruesome scale? We are always hungry and we are constantly stuffing our face with food. There’s a difference though. We don’t just crave for food. We are also thirsty for new cars, gadgets, clothes, shoes, bags, accessories, houses as well as intangibles like fame and power. But once we get them, we either grow tired of them quickly and go looking for new things, or we want more, as if our desires have never been fulfilled in the first place.
So who’s the really hungry one?
My ‘Hungry Ghost’
I recall the technology catch up game I used to play when I first started working. Back then, I enjoyed putting together my own computers and was obsessed with the idea of having the fastest PC. Somehow my computer always felt a tad slower every time a new and faster CPU hit the market, even though it looked blazing fast to me yesterday. Then I would go out and get the latest and fastest and re-assemble my computer all over again.
It was fun but exhausting and wasteful. The good thing is I grew out of it a few years later, realizing that I could never be ahead of the speed curve. My current computer is a lower end Pentium 4 which was bought six years ago and I’m still pretty happy with it up to today.
I still love anything that’s shiny or metallic but I don’t let it get the better of me. Whenever my ‘hungry ghost’ strikes, I remind myself of the worthless computer parts as well as unused phones that are still sitting in my cabinet. That always shuts its tiny mouth up.
What’s Your ‘Hungry Ghost’ Like?
There’s a ‘hungry ghost’ in each of us. It is not happy with just having your basic needs satisfied. It wants a little extra and then some. It’s the voice that keeps reminding you of the latest BMW you saw in the papers even though your car is less than a year old. It’s the fear that keeps you awake in the night when your two million fortune dropped by half. It’s the lusty thoughts you have about that new colleague even though you are happily married. It’s also the greed that fueled the financial meltdown last year just when everybody thought the economy was improving. You get the drift.
All the cravings and desires of the ‘hungry ghost’ are fruitless and they put us on a rat wheel that’s going nowhere. No, let me correct that. It does lead us to somewhere: To disasters, miseries, pains and in short, living hell.
But that doesn’t mean you have to abandon all life’s pleasures, of course. The key is to be aware of the choices you make and don’t let the scrawny ‘hungry ghost’ lead you by the nose.
So how does your ‘hungry ghost’ look like and how do you deal with it?
