Hungry Ghosts, the Cost of Being 80% Present, and Your One Wish

Lesli Johnson, an adoptee and a therapist, wrote a story about a young boy and his parents. They’d come to her office because of some behavioral issues, and when Lesli suggested to the parents the boy’s adoption might be a reason for acting out, the parents said the boy did not have any issues with adoption, that he did not ever talk about it.

Later Lesli asked the boy if he thought about adoption. The boy told her he thought about her when he woke up, when he went to school, when he came home, on and on throughout the day. Lesli had not asked him if he thought about his mother, but clearly the boy’s brain was so full of “her” he could not distinguish between “adoption” and “mother”.

His parents, of course, were shocked. They had no idea he thought about her at all. 

I have been thinking a lot recently about the hungry ghost phenomenon. I was reading Jim Kwik’s book Limitless the other day and he asked the reader what our request would be if a magic genie granted us one wish.

This is not a new question. The impulse today, May 1, 2020, is to ask for the world to be clear of COVID-19. However, for the sake of better understanding myself and my hopes and dreams, I am focusing on just me when considering what my wish would be.

Three trillion dollars.

I could do so much. I could feed so many people. I could build rebuild Haiti. I could bribe Trump to retire and get beachside property in Mexico. I could go to the South of France and have massages every day for the rest of my life. I could buy a house in Santa Barbara. I could have a dog. I could get my daughter a jet so she could go to Italy whenever she wanted. I could make my family’s and friends’ lives financially worry-free.

 But my stomach would still do its thing, I realized. It would still be clenched, telling me something was wrong, and I would have to keep reaching after the next new thing in the effort of feeling okay, feeling grounded, safe, relaxed. I would have to keep moving while chasing the dream of being still. I would be the same as I am now, just with more glitter and with a line of people at my door asking for help. 

The discomfort that I carry in my body keeps me from breathing deeply. I tend to breathe like I’m underwater. My diaphragm barely moves. Deep breathing massages the internal organs: the heart, the intestines, the whole shebang that’s packed so tightly into our torso. 

Every full inhale is like a wave cresting, and every full exhale is like the wave breaking on the shore. That cycle of breath contains an entire life: inhale, birth, exhale, death. A full inhale and exhale is an experience. 

Want to feel alive? Breathe. 

 Want to feel like you’re not sure what’s going to happen next? Want to feel hesitant, nervous, anxious? Breathe like you’re hiding from a bad guy and you don’t want to be discovered.

Breathe like you’re not really there at all.

If I had one wish, I’d wish that I had an open heart which held unwavering love for everything. Even serial killers. Even COVID-19. 

Even myself. 

Here’s why: if my heart were open, I’d be home wherever I was because I’d be fully in my body. The heart has its own nervous system, and for a heart to be open and fully feeling, it has to be supported by full breaths. And when a person is inhaling and exhaling in a way that supports the well-being of the heart, the energy body expands and the person becomes lighter. Light. 

All you have to do to understand what I’m talking about is to look at pictures of Ram Dass’s face or the Dali Lama’s to see what an open heart does to the eyes, the smile, the voice. Here’s a link to a video of Ram Dass post-stroke. Listen to him say Be love and know what an open heart sounds like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Coh-85pj16M

Just because I love something, by the way, doesn’t mean I have to agree with it. I can love a serial killer and still lock my doors, still kill him with my bare hands if he tries to hurt me. I can love a cow I raise, knowing I am going to kill it and serve it with salad to my friends. These are brutal thoughts, but they are true. Love does not mean I am at the mercy of the whims of the world. Love does not mean I am not a carnivore. At least not to me. To me, living with an open heart means I am present, and, I believe, if a person is fully present, judgement falls away. How can you see and judge at the same time? 

Years ago, I read Martin Buber’s I and Thou, and, if I remember correctly, the basic premise is I am that. If I look at anything with an open heart, I see there is no separation. I am that.

When you live like a hungry ghost, all you see is separation, and the lack of connection fuels eating, spending, drinking, wild, thoughtless behaviours. More more more more. 

 When you live like a hungry ghost you are always itchy, and you’ll do anything to stop the distraction. 

Your life becomes one big chase after pain relief. 

You are a little boy sitting in the classroom, not able to fully hear the teacher because your brain is chattering away about the story of your mother, that she left you. Or it’s trying to figure out how to keep your alcoholic father from taking another drink. Your brain is so busy knitting stories that you can’t focus on your homework or on what your father just asked you to do. Your brain is a wild spider, connecting, connecting, connecting, creating, creating, creating, spinning webs out of the thinnest of strands. 

 When you live like a hungry ghost you experience nothing fully. You are, let’s say, 80% present when eating, when working, when saying I do, and so nothing is 100% fulfilling. And so you keep chasing after more.

When you live like a hungry ghost, your heart is not 100% open because you are not 100% in your body. You are in the past, trying to sort things out, trying to find what you lost, trying to reclaim your sense of dignity and belonging. 

But these things are only to be found here, right here. Now.

When you lost your mother when you were born, the present moment can seem like the most dangerous place in the world. Why would I want to be here, when here is when I lost her? When your father beat you when you were three, why would you want to be here, when here is when he first lay an angry hand on you? 

This is why I think there should be mindfulness training clinics, schools, programs, whatever, for adoptees and children with high ACE scores. (And, as logic would follow, all people, since, as the Buddha figured out, life is suffering.) We need to get into these brains of ours and learn ways of rewiring our thoughts so we can inhale and exhale fully, so we can feel safe, so we can thrive, so we can claim this one life and say, This is mine. I am mine. And I love me and I love you and I love the space between us. 

Today is May 1st. May Day. Maybe this is the day for you when anything is possible. Make your wish. See what happens.