Ephemeral Bliss in the Land of Hungry Ghosts

When I look around me I see a lot of people chasing things that will never make them happy. I imagine there are many more like me who can see that the dreams the powers that be teach us to chase are hollow. Whether it be only a piercing ray of truth slipping through the cracks or an undercurrent of suspicion always there but never coming into focus.

ghosts.jpgIt’s easy to understand how uncomfortable the process of realization is if someone is to acknowledge that they have spent so much time and energy on an illusion. The urge to block those rays and suppress those truths is made all the easier with the diversions provided by the ones profiting off the willing labor supplied chasing the carrot at the end of the stick. Yet even those profiting are chasing unfulfillment.

We live in a land of hungry ghosts. The symptoms of our situation are a well documented pitfall of man in western philosophy. Tibetan Buddhism calls this pitfall on the way to enlightenment the realm of the hungry ghosts. They are represented as paisley shapes with necks too thin to fill the mountainous hunger of their giant stomachs.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that happiness can not be bought or consumed. It’s an illusion. Spending a third of your life working a job that doesn’t intrinsically make you happy, but pays well so that you can pursue those illusions is a farce.

Some part of me enjoys creating, so web design appeals to me on that level. The rest of me however, does not at all appreciate being told what and how to create. I do not jump out of bed in the morning eager to see what the day will bring.

I know there are many more people out there who feel the same way. We all just need the reach down and find the drive to change our paths. I’m lucky to have the support of my family and friends. They may look at my plans and initially see madness, but they support me and that makes the effort and drive much easier to sustain.

I think everyone should turn off their televisions and reassess their lives. Is what they are doing and hoping to achieve something that came internally from direct encounters of ephemeral bliss or the misguided and possibly intentionally deviant goals offered up by others as a way of unsuccessfully filling the emptiness?

This entry was posted on Friday, November 23rd, 2007 at 11:03 am and is filed under Culture, Society, Greed, Ethics, Awareness, Community, Uncategorized. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Ephemeral Bliss in the Land of Hungry Ghosts”

  1. Luke Lundemo Says:
    November 23rd, 2007 at 12:21 pm

    Eternally unfulfilled desires. What is mega-sad is that in industrialized society, most of the desires people pursue are not even remotely real or of their own creation. Everyone thinks their mind can withstand the 50 to 100 million advertising messages we are subjected to. Nobody’s mind is anywhere near that strong. We are all horribly bent and twisted by all the messages we’ve taken in - most of them without consciously noticing.
    Another sad effect of this false message barrage is what it does to our idea of who we are. Are you a consumer? Are you an American or some other nationality? Are you a democrat/republican? A christian/buddhist/jew/muslim? A son or daughter or a mother or father or brother or sister? There must be hundreds of identities that the culture tries to stick on us. Are you the proud owner of a _______? Most people will die never having encountered a moment totally free of these false identities. You’d think we could do better. The future survival of humanity on earth probably depends on us doing better.

  2. Sue Says:
    November 26th, 2007 at 1:50 pm

    Well said, Luke.
    Good entry, Tao.