Lam-rim 20: Clutching Ghosts (Pretas)

In any case, what is life like as a clutching ghost? We consider the sufferings of this type of rebirth and its causes in order to motivate us to want to avoid having those types of sufferings ourselves.

They suffer from heat, cold, hunger, thirst, fatigue, and fear, but the degree to which they suffer is much, much greater than what we, as humans, experience. They feel intense heat not only from the sun but also from the moon. They feel cold from wind and water and even from the sun and moon. A rain shower feels like a bombardment of rocks. They have to remain hungry, sometimes for hundreds of years. Any food they might take turns to fire in their stomachs. They have no moisture in their bodies. Anything they might drink burns their stomachs like acid. They exhaust themselves, running constantly after illusions and mirages of food and water that disappear as soon as they reach them. They always live in fear of being destroyed by larger ghosts. When after running after an illusion of food they reach it, they see a terrifying giant about to chop them into pieces.

This is really quite awful. And those are just the general problems. They also have a lot of particular external and internal blocks and hindrances.

They can’t partake of most food or drink, even when it’s placed before them, because obscurations from their previous karma prevent them from even seeing it. Rivers that look full of water to humans, to them appear dried up. Trees that look filled with fruit to humans, to them look desolate and barren. They also have internal hindrances. Because they have huge bodies with huge stomachs and necks that are the size of a needle or that are tied in a knot, if they take anything to eat, it becomes fire in their mouths. When they take water, it turns to acid. These types of things.

We can start to relate to these sufferings, I think, by thinking about similar problems that we experience as humans – for instance, having difficulty eating, getting a lot of stomach acid, getting an ulcer or stomach cancer, and things like that. If the only thing we can think about is our digestive problems and our next meal, there’s little room left for thoughts of spiritual practice. It’s interesting how much our digestion really affects the state of our minds. A problem that almost everybody experiences as they get older is that they can’t eat the types of things that they used to eat when they were younger – rich food, spicy food, or whatever it might be. The body just doesn’t tolerate those things anymore. They just make one ill. So, there are many things that we can no longer enjoy.

The main causes for this type of rebirth are miserliness, greed, and lack of generosity.

There are several forms of miserliness. One is not wanting to share with somebody else – so, holding on to what one has. Not sharing, not giving enough, or giving the worst that one has is being stingy. 

There’s a difference, at least in English, between being miserly and being stingy. Being miserly is not wanting to use things for ourselves. There are a lot of people who have money, but who always buy the cheapest and worst quality thing. They won’t even spend their money on themselves; they just hoard it. Or there are people who have, let’s say, good clothes, but who never wear them. They’re saving them for some special occasion – but then they never wear them. And then they become too fat to fit into them anyway, so saving them was useless. 

That’s a very interesting state of mind that we need to examine in ourselves. Do we complain, for example, when we’re buying a present for someone, “This costs too much. It’s too good. I don’t want to spend so much money,” even though we could afford it? “This is too good to give to somebody else. I’ll keep it for myself.” Also, there are a lot of people who complain, “Oh, why did they spend so much money on this or that? Why did they make such an elaborate temple? Why do they want to build such a big statue? You don’t have to build such a big statue” – this type of thing. That would be a reason for us not to be able to enjoy things. 

Not being able to enjoy anything is one of the main sufferings of these clutching ghosts. They can’t enjoy food because it turns to something horrible. They can’t even enjoy drinking water because it turns to acid. They can’t ever get comfortable. Things are too hot, too cold, and these sorts of things. So, there are always blocks to being able to use, to enjoy, to experience, and to eat anything. All of those words – to use, to enjoy, to experience, and to eat – are actually connotations of the same word in Sanskrit, preta. The Tibetan translation of that word is the same. It’s very interesting, actually, that using, enjoying, experiencing, and eating are all part of one concept. 

Participant: It’s the same with the German word “genießen.” It can mean either to eat or to enjoy something.

Dr. Berzin: What about to experience or to make use of something?

Participant: You could use it in those ways, but you wouldn’t.

Dr. Berzin: So, one could, but the word is not commonly used in those ways. 

I always find it interesting when people save money all their lives for their old age but, then, never spend it. They could be eighty years old and still think, “I’ll keep it until I really get old.” This type of thinking is very, very odd. When we’ve reached a certain age, we could, instead, have the attitude that “I’ve spent all my life saving up. Now I can afford to take a taxi rather than wait a half-hour or an hour for the bus. I’m old enough to do that. I can treat myself.”

There’s also this thing of going the cheapest way. “I will save a hundred euros by having an overnight layover in the airport. I’ll just sit there for eight hours so I can save myself a little bit of money” – when, in fact, we do have the money. The point here is that we could afford it, but we don’t want to spend the money. For someone who’s a student and who doesn’t have the money, that’s something else.

Participant: The reason for saving money is also important. If one wants to save money for giving a gift or something, it’s a bit different than just saving it for the sake of saving.

Dr. Berzin: Right. However, the point here is that we have it but that we won’t spend it. Or when other people are building something, we think, “They shouldn’t have made it so nice! Why are they wasting so much money? Why does it have to be so big?”

The issue isn’t with saving: it’s with not using – hoarding. When we are miserly, we block ourselves from enjoying or using something. As a result, we get blocked physically and mentally from being able to use things. For example, we could have mental blocks against a lot of things that we would otherwise enjoy or do because of fear and so on. It’s just that in these lower realms, all of these problems are magnified. 

They say that hoarding doesn’t have to be just in terms of material things. It can also be in terms of knowledge – not wanting to share it or just accumulating more and more of it without integrating and making use of it. They even say that some desperately clutching ghosts are good debaters. Because of their instincts, they can write and spell well. However, they were unable to prevent their rebirths in this type of state because they never actually integrated or used their knowledge and learning in their previous lives. They just hoarded them for themselves. 

So, we look at these causes. Have we committed them? Then think of the types of suffering that would result and imagine experiencing them. Then, think, “I really don’t want that. Therefore, I will try to avoid the causes.” 

The opposite of complaining – “Oh, they’re spending too much. That’s too good,” and so on – is, of course, rejoicing: “How wonderful that they’re building such a huge statue and that they’ve made such a lovely temple.” It’s very easy, especially as Westerners, to criticize the ornate-ness of the Tibetan temples. “Why do they have to put gold plating on the statue?” This sort of thing can be an issue for us, especially when we’re thinking that they could use the money to feed people, build a hospital, and things like that. But the point is not what they use the money for: the point is the state of mind in which we complain.

Just so that people don’t get confused, I should add that, from the Tibetan point of view, once we give somebody a gift, the gift then belongs to that person. If we give them money, they can spend it in whatever way they want. If we want them to have a hospital, we build a hospital for them. We don’t give them the money and say, “You build the hospital.” This is the way of dealing with that situation.

[meditation]

In pujas, after all the participants have partaken of the offering of tsog (tshogs), the food and so on that is offered in these rituals, everybody gives back a small portion to be offered to the clutching ghosts. It’s put on a plate and taken outside. It has to be something that is left over. So, we take a bite of whatever it is and then put the little piece that’s left over onto the plate. The piece has to be quite small and not good quality. That’s because the clutching ghosts aren’t able to enjoy anything of good quality. They can’t even see anything of good quality. If they’re able to eat anything, it’s usually spit, vomit, or something like that or something that somebody has discarded. So, for that reason, we give something of very, very poor quality to the clutching ghosts. Now, if we have guests at home, then we give things that are of good quality. But it’s not the custom to put the choicest piece outside to give to the clutching ghosts because they wouldn’t be able to enjoy it at all.  

Shopping for Teachers and Collecting Initiations

Participant: What came to my mind about not using things was how some people are always collecting teachers. In India and Nepal, there are all these teachers. People just run from one teacher to the next. They can hardly sit still. What would you say is the borderline between just going around collecting teachers and actually getting inspiration and being serious about practice?

Dr. Berzin: Although you didn’t include this, there’s also the phenomenon of going to any initiation that anybody is giving – so, collecting initiations. 

I think that it’s very important to find your own spiritual mentor. And it doesn’t have to be just one. Most people have more than one. They have different ones for the different topics that they’re studying or training in. Some teachers specialize in one thing, some in something else. However, the thing is to get serious in your study and to actually practice. It’s not just to shop around and to collect more and more initiations that you don’t actually practice. 

Now, just to get inspiration…. well, inspiration needs to be primarily from the teacher with whom you have a personal relationship. That’s when it’s the strongest, usually. People do get great inspiration from people like His Holiness the Dalai Lama or the Karmapa, even though they don’t necessarily have personal, individual relationships with them. Most people don’t. But how do you find a balance? Well, you could certainly go and get inspiration from someone, but is that at the expense of your practice? Is that at the expense of your study? 

Examining Our Motivation

I recall something that the young Serkong Rinpoche told me when I was faced with a similar situation. There were several teachings going on that I wanted to go to, and I asked his advice. He said, “You have your teachers, and you have your practices. Why are you going to these other teachings? What is your aim? What is your purpose?” It was very helpful to think about that. What was my motivation for going, and what did I expect to get from them? Would I actually do the practices that this other teacher – with whom I previously had had no relationship – was going to offer? Was I dissatisfied with the practices I had now? Did I feel as though I needed more or needed something else? Why was I going? Curiosity? Well, OK, one can go out of curiosity, just to find out why other people find this lama so inspiring. But investigating the motivation was the crux of what Rinpoche was saying to me. Motivation (kun-slong, motivating aim), if you recall, has two aspects: (1) the aim – what you expect out of it and why – and (2) the emotion that drives you toward it. I think one has to consider both of those things. 

The most common phenomenon, though, is going to any initiation that anybody is giving. This, I think, really requires examination. Is the motivation just to go for the blessings, etc.? I think it’s more of a spectacle for most people. I don’t know that they get inspired in a mature way.

Participant: The last time I was in Bodh Gaya, the Karmapa was staying at Mingyur Rinpoche’s monastery for two or three weeks. Sometimes he’d go on top of the monastery to get some fresh air. There were all these people sitting in meditation in the garden and praying to him. Some would shout and take photographs. What do you think of that? Maybe some people made it into a serious practice, but I had a strange feeling about it.

Dr. Berzin: This is, I think, a slightly different type of situation. Again, one can think of people waiting for a glimpse of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. His Holiness was just in Arunachal Pradesh, and he described how people had walked for so many kilometers in order just to get a glimpse of him. As His Holiness says, “Just to get a glimpse of me is not the point. Listen to the teachings. And don’t just listen to them: actually put them into practice.” This is the important thing. But people found it so inspiring just to see him. 

The great lamas are very inspiring. But then, as I say, what are you going to do with that? Just get high from it? Then it becomes like a drug. I think a lot of people approach the lamas and Dharma activities a little bit like a drug. “Oh, this is better than marijuana!” They’ll sit there in a puja with the monks, but does the experience affect anything in their lives? No. Then you have to consider what the difference is between waiting for a glimpse of a great lama and waiting for a glimpse of a movie star or a rock star. People get such a high after getting a glimpse: “Oh, I actually saw Michael Jackson!” What’s the difference? 

Participant: On the other hand, one of the bodhisattva precepts is to go when there are teachings.

Dr. Berzin: In other words, don’t make excuses out of laziness, etc. not to go to teachings. Well, does that imply having to go to every single teaching that is given by every single lama in the universe, or does that apply to your own teachers? I think it applies much more to your own teachers. 

Now, there is a difference, of course, when you are in the phase of looking around for a teacher. But as the Tibetans say, you shouldn’t be like a hungry dog that will just snap up any sort of bone that’s thrown to it. You have to be discriminating; you have to check the teacher out. In the beginning, this will often mean shopping around, in a sense. You check out various teachers to see what’s available. However, the danger is that you never stop shopping. At some point, you have to commit yourself to a particular teacher and a particular spiritual path. This, I think, is very, very important. And once you’ve decided, you need to be serious about it and to stick with your decision. But be really sure. Don’t decide prematurely. Now, of course, there are always exceptions. You can go along and then find that this didn’t really suit you. But, in general, you have to get beyond that shopping phase.

I have my spiritual teachers – talking about myself personally. Obama came to speak, here, in Berlin, and 200,000 people or more went to hear him. I went also. Was it inspiring? Yes. He’s an inspiring figure. Did I go just to get the inspiration? Well, I was curious to see what he was like. Do I go to every sort of event like that? No.

So I think one has to discriminate. Again, it goes back to the advice that the young Serkong Rinpoche gave me, which is the most classic Buddhist advice: check your motivation. What do you expect from this? What is your purpose? And what’s the emotion behind it? Dissatisfaction with what you have? Or what? 

Can We Be Miserly with Our Feelings?

Participant: Can one be miserly or stingy with emotions – with love, affection, praise, and these sorts of things?

Dr. Berzin: Certainly. 

Now, showing emotions, sharing feelings – this, again, becomes a little bit of a cultural thing. I’m thinking of California, where I have a student who has become a teacher. Once, when I was visiting, I went to his group to see what he did. In the beginning, everybody asked everybody else how they felt. Then, in the middle, they stopped and asked everybody how they felt about what was going on. At the end, they again asked everybody what they were feeling. There are some societies in which that is not only very common, it’s also considered to be very healthy and good. There are other societies in which people would say, “What do I care what you think or feel?” 

It’s like the difference between an American family and an Indian one. American parents always ask the children what they want to eat and what they want to wear. In a poor Indian family, the parents would never ask their children what they wanted to eat or wear. “This is what we have to eat, and these are the clothes that you have.” There’s no question about it. Also, in most Asian families, people don’t share their emotions. They don’t talk about how they feel. 

Additionally, people can have emotional blocks, like being afraid that if they show something of themselves, others will reject them or think they’re not good enough – these sorts of things. Is this really miserliness? Is it hoarding one’s emotions? It’s an interesting question.

I know one person who feels that he should only show affection to and have physical contact with somebody to whom he is sexually attracted. If he’s not attracted to somebody, he doesn’t want to have any physical contact because, to this person, physical contact means sexual contact. Well, having physical contact and showing affection don’t have to be sexual – especially when it comes to a child, a sick person, an elderly person, a grieving person, and so on. Is that person being miserly? 

One has to analyze the mentality. What is the reason for being not being willing either to share something or to use something oneself? What would be behind that? In not wanting to share with somebody else, there could be a strong sense of “I want to keep it for me.” But, then, what would be the reason for not wanting even to use something oneself?

Participant: Insecurity.

Dr. Berzin: Right, “I don’t want to use it now because I feel insecure. And I want to save it for the future.” So, we’re talking about me. Is this also the case with affection and love?

Participant: You can’t store affection and love. You can’t keep them for later.

Dr. Berzin: Right. You can’t keep them for yourself. I think there are different reasons why people don’t show love or why they are hesitant or have blocks when it comes to showing emotions and so on.

Participant: I think that being demonstrative with your emotions is something you learn. For example, my family wasn’t particularly demonstrative. So, I’m not very attracted to this California thing of talking about one’s feelings. If I want to talk about them, I talk with somebody I know. I don’t want to talk about them with everyone I meet.

Dr. Berzin: But then there can be just the opposite outcome. Many people who were raised in families like that really dislike the fact that their parents weren’t more outwardly affectionate. They then go in the opposite direction: they rebel. For many of my generation, that’s the case. My parents and other parents of their generation weren’t particularly affectionate with their children, whereas my friends, who are of my generation, are very affectionate with their children. This is the hippy generation I’m talking about. They think, “My parents didn’t give me affection, but I’m going to give my kids affection and tell them that I love them” and stuff like that. I don’t think my parents ever said to me, “I love you.” 

Participant: But they did love you.

Dr. Berzin: They did.

Participant: So, one doesn’t have to talk about it.

Dr. Berzin: Right. This is another issue. A psychologist friend of mine uses the example of currency to illustrate how people express affection differently. Some people show it one way, like by taking care of you, and others show it another way, like by saying, “I love you,” hugging you, and stuff like that. Well, that’s like paying in two different currencies, in euros and in dollars. We have to learn to be able to make the currency exchange – in other words, to accept the currency that this person is paying with. This, I thought, was a brilliant insight.

Participant: When somebody says, “I love you all the time,” I start to distrust that they mean it.

Dr. Berzin: Not only that, it doesn’t mean that they love you any more than someone who doesn’t say I love you all the time.

Participant: One of the ways of practicing the four immeasurables is to extend our love and compassion to larger and larger circles. Wouldn’t this be a way of overcoming this lack of generosity?

Dr. Berzin: Right. But we were just analyzing whether not demonstrating or expressing affection was an example of miserliness, hoarding, and not wanting to share. Well, I don’t know that that’s quite the same as not sharing material things or knowledge. One would have to really analyze that. “I have my little group, my family or my close friends, and I don’t want to expand that more. One, I don’t really have time to have more friends that I have to call or email. I have other things to do and people to take care of” – things like that. These are reasons why we wouldn’t want to expand the circle. Is that being miserly? There’s a difference between others seeking our friendship and us going out to seek more. Expanding the circle while we are sitting in meditation is one thing. Doing it in real life is something quite, quite different.

Participant: If we limit ourselves, feeling that we can’t extend our love and concern beyond our own circle, we’re not being generous with love. One of the four kinds of generosity is the generosity of love, having the wish for everybody to be happy.

Dr. Berzin: Yes, when generosity is mixed with grasping for a solid “me,” we don’t want to share. 

I’m just wondering. What we’re analyzing here is the clutching ghost realm and thinking about how they are deprived of food, drink, warmth, etc. Could we extend our thinking about those types of deprivation –though this isn’t part of the traditional Buddhist presentation – to include being deprived of love and affection? “Nobody ever shows me affection. Nobody ever cuddles me. Even as a child, I was never hugged or cuddled by my parents.” Could that type of experience have come from not having shown affection to others in previous lifetimes? Well, yes, one would have to say that that could be the case. Is that really the same mentality as hoarding, keeping things for ourselves? I think maybe we have to extend this idea of hoarding and not sharing a bit further. It becomes a very interesting thing in terms of love: “I don’t want to show love to you.”

Participant: I think you can bring in the idea of energy here. When you get really emotionally involved, ryou might think, “I don’t want to give so much energy to something like that. I want to keep that for me.”

Dr. Berzin: Right. “I don’t want to invest so much energy in having these strong feelings for others. I want to invest it just in you, my special one, or in my family,” and so on. This becomes a complicated dynamic between those who won’t spend much time with their families but who will spend a great deal of time with their friends – especially in a partnership. That type of conflict comes up quite often between couples: one person wants to spend all their time with friends, and the other doesn’t; they want to spend it just with you. That’s holding on, not wanting to share, isn’t it?

Participant: I think it’s rather that you’re being miserly with your time or energy, not your love. If you don’t show your love, maybe there are other reasons, like hostility.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Or it could be fear – fear of rejection, fear of not being good enough, fear of being misunderstood. Fear of being abused can also be a reason. 

I remember an incident at a check out counter in a grocery store when I was in Russia a few weeks ago. Here, in Berlin, the cashiers in stores always say, “Have a good day,” “Have a good weekend,” “Have a good evening,” “How are you?” They always say something. Whether it’s sincere or not is another question, but it’s very, very nice. And they look at you and smile in most cases. In Moscow, when I got to the checkout counter, I smiled and said hello to the woman who was taking the money. She gave me a very strange look. When I went outside and I mentioned it to my friends, they said, “Oh, you never do that in a store in Moscow because they think that you’re coming on sexually to them.” So, you don’t ever smile or say hello.

Participant: So, in this context, it would not be miserly.

Dr. Berzin: Right. 

So, when we think about it, we can see that not sharing is a complicated thing. Also, as you say, time can be a factor. You could have time but don’t want to give it, or you could not have time.

Participant: I don’t use what time I have to relax. I do one thing for someone, then another thing for someone else, and, in the end, I never use any time for myself.

Dr. Berzin: That’s like never using your money or possessions for yourself.

But then there’s also the opposite: “I’m not going to give you my time because I need it for myself.” That’s also, in a sense, hoarding. But there has to be a balance. One needs to find the balance. So, again, one has to really examine the motivation. “Am I just being lazy? Is it just that I can’t be bothered to be with you?” 

Speaking about having limited time or energy makes me think of the example of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. No matter where he goes, he smiles. He radiates happiness and concern for everybody. He has an almost unlimited supply – although it’s not that he goes around spending an hour with each person in the audience. So, as we go about the day, we can be pleasant with everybody. That’s being very generous. It’s not that “I’m just going to keep it inside and only be nice when I’m home.” We can be pleasant when we’re driving, when we’re on the bus, when we’re in the store – wherever. That’s one aspect. 

But we have now gone very far into more of a psychological realm of hoarding, not wanting to share, and of this whole thing of complaining, “They built it too big. They made it too nice,” which is a type of behavior that is specified much more clearly in the traditional discussion of the clutching ghosts.

Participant: I found I could relate to greed more than stinginess.

Dr. Berzin: But greed – “I want it all for myself, and I’m not going to give any to you”; “I want more for myself, and I’m not going to give any to you” – could also be related to what we’ve been talking about here.

Participant: “This is the nice biscuit, so I’ll have it.”

Dr. Berzin: Greed: “This is the nice one. I’ll take it for myself and leave you the crumbs,” or “There’s this other kind that I don’t like, so I’ll give it to you.”

What is relevant, I think, is that, even if these various disturbing emotions and the destructive behaviors that are motivated by them might not be so prominent in us – we might have other ones that are prominent – it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t examine them. We need to examine the whole spectrum of disturbing emotions and attitudes and then examine ourselves: “Do I have this? And what would it lead to?” 

Participant: The example of miserliness that came to my mind was that I don’t like thinking about all the presents that you have to give at Christmas.

Dr. Berzin: What I personally dislike is the wrapping paper and the ribbons. What a waste! You put them on, and then they just tear them off and throw them away.

Participant: But my point was that, in the end, I have to arrange all these presents because, otherwise, the others in the family will be quite disappointed. So, if I have to do it, I should really rejoice in giving something. That’s much more constructive than just thinking, “Oh, my God! What should I buy this year?” That’s just changing your attitude to the same action.

Dr. Berzin: That’s very true in terms of Christmas gifts. But, as I said, with the wrapping paper, the ribbons, and the cards that you just throw away or whatever, my tendency is to say, “What a waste! What an utter waste.” Is this the type of attitude that they’re talking about here? Would the other person really like it to be wrapped? Or should I just give it in a paper bag or something – or not even in a bag? And if they give me a present that’s all wrapped up and fancy, do I say, “Oh, come on! This is ridiculous,” or what?

Participant: Well, it depends on the person. If someone wraps a gift very nicely, sometimes you really see the care that they put into it.

Dr. Berzin: Right. But then you start to think of all the trees that were cut down for the wrapping paper. 

Participant: You can recycle the wrapping paper. That’s what I do. I open it nicely so the paper isn’t torn. Then I reuse it.

Participant: That’s miserliness.

Participant: It depends on the person.

Dr. Berzin: Or I throw it in the recycle paper bin outside. 

Are there ecological considerations that override this issue of “Well, they shouldn’t have cut down the teak trees that are so rare just to make this really nice, beautiful furniture”? Again, is this saying, “It shouldn’t be so nice. Why did they spend so much?” Or is this being practical? These are, again, things that require that we use discriminating awareness and examine the motivation.