While spiritual writer and priest Henri Nouwen was writing a journal during the last year of his life, he read a book by Mark Epstein called Thoughts without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective. This book describes a concept drawn from Tibetan cosmology, the concept of hungry ghosts. Hungry ghosts are described as
phantom-like creatures with withered limbs, grossly bloated bellies, and long, narrow necks.
Mark Epstein
The bloated bellies of these ghosts keep them hungry and thirsty, but their long narrow necks prevent them from satisfying their great hunger and thirst.
Epstein sees these hungry ghosts as metaphors for the prevalence of low self-esteem in Western countries. He believes that the pervasiveness of Western feelings of worthlessness are rooted in early experiences of estrangement. In Western psychotherapy, the causes of estrangement are analyzed and explored, a process he believes draws more attention to the hungry ghosts while never filling their needs. He claims that in Tibet a positive sense of self is thought to be the responsibility of the individual, a responsibility that is then nurtured and supported by family and community. In Tibet, anyone who does not nurture her own feelings of worth and value is considered a fool.
Nouwen found the concept of “hungry ghosts” fascinating and so do I. We don’t talk about hungry ghosts in the Christian tradition, but we do talk about demons. Like Epstein, the fourth century monks of the Egyptian desert warned against combatting demons directly. The monks observed that for most people, focusing on demons does not remove them but instead increases the disturbances they cause.
Whether I call them demons or hungry ghosts, I can easily relate the way I experience my insecurities to the Tibetan description of “phantom like creatures with withered limbs, grossly bloated bellies, and long, narrow necks.” When my insecurities get the best of me, I can appreciate the vast hunger of the bloated bellies and the inability to feed that hunger because of the narrow necks. I know how my inner ghosts were formed. I have analyzed and explored the root causes. I know my weaknesses and what triggers the ghosts to rise within me and haunt my days. But just as Epstein says, knowing all about the hungry ghosts does not diminish their power to rule over my emotional life.
I think identifying the root causes of our alienation, estrangement, neuroses, and anxieties is one important step toward healing. But I have also learned that identifying the sources does not take the pain away. Our inner wounds may heal over time, but if the wounds are deep enough, I don’t think we ever fully escape their pain. Picturing my insecurities as hungry ghosts doesn’t free me from their grasp, but it does suggest a few helpful approaches to learning to live with them.
In “Notes for a Philosophy of Solitude,” Thomas Merton writes that knowing that God lives in us and we in God, we must take responsibility for our own inner lives. We must listen for
the unspeakable beating of a Heart within the heart of one’s own life.
Thomas Merton
In regard to my hungry ghosts, this means it is more important for me to listen for God in my present than dig through my past for the ways people hurt me, for the alienation that caused my hungry ghosts to form. If I listen closely for God’s heart beating in my own life, the ways I was wounded in the past do not disappear but are given perspective by a deeper and wider love.
Taking responsibility for my inner life also means listening deeply to myself, learning to know what brings me joy, learning to hear when I need rest, learning to hear what God has asked me to do, as well as what I do not need to do. When alienation and estrangement have dominated your past, it can be more difficult yet more important to listen deeply to yourself, and trust that God calls you to this deep and personal listening.
Finally, in taking responsibility for my inner life, I have learned to recognize that I have some insecurities that will never go away. For better or worse, these insecurities are my companions for life. I am still learning this lesson. I still get trapped analyzing why I am feeling insecure and strategizing ways to overcome the pain. As I analyze and strategize, the power of my insecurity grows. I become haunted by my hungry ghosts. A turning point comes when I remember my insecurity is a path of prayer. The path is not easy to find. It takes patience and time but when I am able to stand still in the pain my insecurity causes with my heart open to God, I begin to experience a quieting. The loud, incessant, raucous sound of my insecurity is slowly swallowed by a silence that communicates God’s healing presence to me. I might have to limp down the path of prayer opened by my wounds, but it is a walk that leads me toward an ever deepening encounter with the saving love of God.
