Feed the hungry ghosts! Stop feeding greed!

I was part of more Zen ceremonies to appease hungry ghosts than seems reasonable for one struggling human. For five years, food offerings, incense, and chanting were part of every funeral during the AIDS pandemic at Maitri Hospice and Hartford Street Zen Center, and we did more than our share. Our procession included plates of fruit, sweets, and tea, as well as the ashes of the poor soul, appropriate gongs, bells, drums, rattles, and weird noise makers. The incense burner was chock full of the sweetest incense over thick glowing charcoal,

Haloween 

October 29th, 2011

Tonight the Castro will be crawling with lots of hot guys all dressed up. Included will be ghouls and ghosts of Halloweens past, present, and future! To mark the event, I am republishing a post I wrote for "spiritually incorrect" several years ago.

 

Years ago, our PZI meditation group worked with the koan, Save the Ghost. I began my own investigation by examining, with the true dharma eye, some of the more domesticated members of the ghost family—the ones hidden in my closet—spiritual versions of the Adams family, though with more insidious, annoying, painful bugs and tricks, plus a big dose of Freud.

This morning, as I was settling into my comfortable routine, checking email and editing yesterday’s writing, a far more vicious and pervasive monster trumped onto the stage, a Godzilla on steroids breathing fire hot enough to destroy little ol' me and my fantasy world with one big blow. It made its entrance with the announcement that the United States Senate could not find the votes, being too distracted by other important matters, making it "impossible" to pass any legislation to curb the continuing environmental degradation of the planet we all share. Hell no!

Actions speak louder than words! I’m issuing an immediate attention action alert to all Buddhists: Feed the hungry ghosts! Stop feeding greed! Remember that greed is not outside you or me. Own it or die.

Firstly, the oil spill, then the hand-wringing, then the brouhaha, then today the news that Congress will not pass an environmental bill (you’re kidding, right?), then the conflagration of billions of dollars of wealth (well, they say it’s just on paper—until you have to pay the grocer) in milliseconds because we have learned to grab so fast!

My mind- no, my gut drags me into dark thoughts about the greed that seems embedded in our culture, in the artifacts of modern life. We have created these monsters that feed on our greedy dark side. Starve them to death, or at least put them on Jenny Craig, which might be worse.

The Buddhist world has traditional remedies for dealing with powerful ghosts. Christian mythology has fallen angels to contend with. In Buddhism, these nasty, powerful beast-gods, through the power of blessed bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment, convert to the Way and become our guardians. The well-known Mahakala is this black protector with four arms and dripping skulls cinched round its belly.

My attention has recently been so focused on meditation and the images we use, hold, carry, and create that I searched for images of hungry ghosts. Almost immediately, I began to imagine that maybe I could concoct my own magical Tibetan-style visualization to help start the letting go, stamping out the destructive little mind.

I don't have much more to say. I’m just throwing my thought-concerns into the fire of the koan, along with some images that grabbed me. Am I done?

I found images of our phantoms and then tried to match them with what other Buddhist cultures have created by way of appeasements.

No, there is more! And yes, when I said, “other.” I came to the sudden realization that we spend far too much time whining and groaning, complaining and attacking the "other," trying to get some Asian recipe right as if that would save our skin. Goddamn, shut up, eat your hamburgers, eat your tofu burgers, then sit-stand-shout, “Thanks, ancestors, now here’s what we’re going to do.” We have to fill in the blanks ourselves.

America stands at the center of this man-made crisis. Are we going to be responsible? Or are we going to duck for cover under lovely Buddhist robes? The choice is ours, not some god's.

I could get behind creating new American Buddhist rituals to appease our hungry ghosts, though that is just a place to start. Don't let religion fool you. Actions have to equal words, even solemnly chanted ones.

When I speak of rituals for exorcising hungry ghosts, I’m not talking about Halloween in the Castro, though that might be a good place to start. Yeah, wait a minute. It certainly packs some powerful antidotes. We can't let tight-assed practice squeeze all the fun out of ritual. There's already way too much suffering.

I have even more to say. Another time.

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HAUNTING THE BUDDHA: INDIAN POPULAR RELIGIONS AND THE FORMATION OF BUDDHISM.

By Robert DeCaroli. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. 230. 

ISBN 0-19-516838-0.

This intriguing book proposes that one reason Buddhism gained popularity in India after the royal patronage that propelled it into prominence in the centuries following Ashoka collapsed was the connection it forged with the local populace by building a reputation for subduing and converting bothersome spirit-deities to Buddhism. DeCaroli’s source material consists of texts and, equally prominently, Buddhist sculpture. This volume continues a trend in Buddhist studies, highlighted by the work of G. Schopen, to look beyond the moral and philosophical systematics that dominated Buddhist studies for a century and a half toward the material culture of Buddhism, a project that provides a much-needed and more accurate depiction of Buddhism as a multidimensional religion. Beyond the immediate confines of DeCaroli’s project, this volume sheds light on the deep historical precedents for converting negative spirits into positive ones in both Buddhism and Hinduism, an activity that remains fairly widespread today in the popular religious cultures of India, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia. While DeCaroli’s skills as an art historian clearly surpass his philological skills, this is nevertheless a well-balanced account of a unique development in the history of Buddhism. This welcome and accessible volume should find a place in an array of courses on Buddhism.

Frederick M. Smith, University of Iowa