Hungry Ghosts at Christmas
By: David Hughes
Tags: Hungry Ghosts, Self Preservation, Buddhism, Compassion, When To Let Go

Talking to a friend at a New Years party, we were exchanging our Christmas reminiscences and got onto the subject of people who take and don’t stop taking.

Without naming names or going into details it turned out that this friend had a pre Christmas phone call from a family member who started out with a very sad story but who ended up asking for money, something it turned out they were well known for.

My friend felt duped because he had listened attentively for at least half an hour thinking he was helping just by ‘being there’, only to be hit by the punchline. This was not the first time, nor was it the first person to have done this to him, and I sympathised because most of us have or have had someone in our lives who is a taker and not a giver.

In Buddhist vernacular they are Hungry Ghosts consigned to a realm where they are never satisfied and just crave (mostly emotional satisfaction) but it can show itself in neediness for money, possessions, or general help when yet again they have got themselves into a bad situation.

I told my friend ‘you have to let this person go’ which might sound like a harsh thing to say but it isn’t and it is this I would like to explain.

Hard luck stories

There are people in this life who have a bad time, they may be addicts, they may have mental issues, they may have all manner of other difficulties that turn them into a Hungry Ghost. They may be your children, they might be friends or acquaintances, they might be your partner.

Whatever their status you feel you want to help them out, be supportive. You know what they have been through, so you give them a little extra leeway a bit more compassion.

This is how it should be. It is always good to try to help someone in difficulty always making sure of course that the help you give doesn’t serve to increase their hunger. By this I mean it isn’t much good giving an addict a handful of cash, in the same way as it isn’t any good giving someone with depression a lecture about how they should look on the bright side of life, which only serves to increase their angst.

So you decide to be supportive, you make sure the support you give is appropriate and you allow yourself to feel you have done your bit. Everything is hunky dory. The problem is that as far as they are concerned this isn’t a one off deal. Hungry Ghosts don’t work that way. As far as learning compassion is concerned they are the gift that keeps on taking.

You might see them as an opportunity to help someone who cannot help themselves, whereas they see you as one of a number of retail outlets where they can shop without ever paying the bill.

Eventually, no matter who they are, there comes a time when you think, really? Again? You’ve done exactly the same thing and you expect me to sort it all out when I have explained to you what the problem is.

Here we need to consider a fundamental truth - they cannot think like you, and you cannot think like them. There is no use saying to a Hungry Ghost, ‘if you just stopped behaving this way then these things wouldn’t happen.’ Deep down they know this. That isn’t the problem. The problem is they can’t behave differently because resolving deep emotional or psychological problems takes a long time and enormous amounts of energy both from the individual themselves and from their support network.

Is there a way forward?

I was introduced to the ‘cycle of recidivism’ when my wife and I had reached a point in our support of someone close to us that was about to break us apart. Basically you imagine a circle, a circle of behaviour, the Hungry Ghost goes round this circle repeating the same behaviour over and over again.

If they really want to change then occasionally you will see them leave this circle almost like a rocket trying to leave Earths’ atmosphere. It doesn’t make it. It returns to Earth and starts going round the circle again, but the fact it has tried and almost got somewhere means with a bit more effort the next time might be successful.

Well maybe not the next time, but you get the gist. So there is hope if the Hungry Ghost really wants to succeed and is prepared to look at themselves and has the motivation to do it. This is the positive side of helping a Hungry Ghost, but you have to accept you are going to put in a lot of time, effort, and almost inevitably money to help them.

But this article isn’t about the few who will be able to achieve this major breakthrough, this is about the impact of the Hungry Ghosts who don’t achieve a breakthrough for whatever reason.

Each one of us has to accept the fact that there is a time when we have to say ‘I am sorry, I have tried, but you have not.’ If you don’t do that then you will find that the Hungry Ghost will suck you dry. There is no end to their appetite and no way they are going to give up, because their plight is to be endlessly hungry. Your situation means nothing to them, they do not see the other side, only their own hunger and you are on the menu! Be warned.

The alcoholic who says ‘I won’t do this to you again’, the gambler who says ‘just one last bet’, the partner who says ‘it was just a fling’, the grown up child who says ‘I didn’t mean not to pay the rent’. If they’ve said it before then they are going to say it again.

These are perhaps obvious examples, but here we are also talking about the mentally abusive parent, the friend who gossips about you but then says they didn’t mean to, the ‘gaslighter’ and so on. In fact anyone who continues to take from you without giving in return or openly acknowledges they need to change and does something about it.

In these circumstances you need to ask yourself ‘why am I putting myself through this emotional or physical trauma when nothing changes’. You should recognise that you may be doing so not because you are a compassionate human being but perhaps deep down it is because you can’t stomach the thought that the Hungry Ghost you are supporting is going to be angry that you have let them down.

So to summarise. Do help people, but don’t continue getting them out of a spot or taking abuse without some sign that they are going to change. Don’t be afraid to set boundaries i.e. ‘this is the last time’, ‘I will give you support but not anymore money’, ‘if you speak to me like that again I am walking’, and stick to them. I repeat, stick to them.

It is the best way to help them, and it is the best way to help yourself. If none of this works then you must cut them out of your life. Explain why, don’t fall for the ‘just one more chance’ plea. You will know when enough is enough, you just have to be brave enough to do what is right.

So to summarise.

Do help people, but don’t continue getting them out of a spot or taking abuse without some sign that they are going to change. Don’t be afraid to set boundaries i.e. ‘this is the last time’, ‘I will give you support but not anymore money’, ‘if you speak to me like that again I am walking’, and stick to them. I repeat, stick to them. It is the best way to help them, and it is the best way to help yourself.

If none of this works then you must cut them out of your life. Explain why, don’t fall for the ‘just one more chance’ plea. You will know when enough is enough, you just have to be brave enough to do what is right.