In the Blue Sea with Cormorants and Hungry Ghosts

—Robert Reese

In the blue sea where
cormorants and hungry ghosts
have already swum
--Kaneko Tōhta

Sometimes it happens this way: You feel a gradual welling up. Your esophagus opens, diaphragm expands. The heart rate increases slightly. You feel poised on the brink of something, but cannot exactly say what it is. A subtle itch. A vague hunger. You can no more contain it than your arms can hold a river. It feels as though a kettle is hissing somewhere in the background of your life. It is present in the gambler, the Internet addict, the shopper and the alcoholic-- a kind of default setting from the minute you wake up until the time you are asleep. You are in the realm of the Hungry Ghosts.

Sejiki is the ancient and evocative ritual of “feeding the hungry ghosts.” Sejiki is a ceremony for remembering the dead and resolving our own karmic connections with those who have died. It is also a time for undertaking our own karmic challenges and releasing hindrances which we may maintain and embrace. Sejiki means “food offering.” The “Se” is an offering or charitable deed, and the “jiki” is food. Sejiki is also a ceremony that addresses attachment at the deepest layers of mind.

The word “ceremony” (Latin: caerimonia) is related to “cura,” or “cure,” -- the act of healing or being healed -- to make healthy, sound or whole. By enacting a ceremony, there is the suggestion that something is becoming healed or corrected. Saint Benedict established “The Rule,” which has its roots in the term trellis, or an outer frame-work which promotes inner growth. In the same way as the trellis promotes a structured growth to wisteria, forms and ceremonies establish a framework on which we can grow. Otherwise, we can evolve in ways akin to self-will run riot. The Sanskrit root of the word “Dharma” means “to support.”

Ceremonies such as Sejiki, Jukai and Ryaku Fusatsu (Full Moon Ceremony) are ways the Soto lineage converses with us. Rituals communicate and form how we perceive ourselves and the world—their function is to shape a kind of perception through patterns impressed by specific action. This modeling is sometimes referred to as the “performative” approach. Similarly, ceremonies have a transformative function that operates below the level of belief or interpretation. Soto Zen is a profoundly physical, embodied practice. Much of the instruction emphasizes posture, movement and comportment. The forms and rituals encourage the body to move and sense and feel in specific Zen ways.

According to the late Rev. Kyogen Carlson from Dharma Rain Center in Portland, Oregon, “the festival is said to have begun with Moggallana, a disciple of the Buddha, was plagued by dreams of his recently departed mother suffering in a world in which she could neither eat nor drink. Food would turn to fire and water would turn to blood or pus whenever it touched her mouth. Moggallana went to the Buddha and told him of his dreams, which tormented him nightly. The Buddha explained that Moggallana was seeing the suffering of his mother in the world of the gakis (pretas in Sanskrit, “departed ones”), or hungry ghosts.”

Rev. Carlson adds, “Moggallana’s dreams were due to his deep connection with his mother, and the Buddha’s advice to him was that he should make an offering to her of whatever food she could most easily accept and digest. This was to be done in a ceremony, dedicated in her name, at the time when the monks conducted their regular gathering to confess their transgressions. This part of the story shows profound wisdom and upaya, skillful means, and reveals the correlation between making offerings to the dead and the cleansing of karma; both personal karma and karma connected to someone who has died. Linking the offering for the deceased mother to the time of confession, the Buddha built a bridge for Moggallana to the mind of repentance and forgiveness, helping him let go of his own entanglements. One way we might understand Moggallana and his mother in modern terms to say they were “enmeshed,” unable to untangle their mutual attachments. An offering made at the time of the monks’ ceremonial confession and letting go could be powerfully healing.”

“Moggallana, accomplished in paranormal arts, voyaged to hell in an attempt to release his mother. In breaking the lock to hell, he inadvertently released all the hungry ghosts who became free to stroll about in the human world. The ceremony was then performed to pacify the ghosts and persuade them to return. Some of the gakis, however, were purged of their craving and gained freedom. Others, through the process of realizing something they needed to understand, remained in hell until they found rebirth,” writes Rev. Carlson.

The residents of the hungry ghost realm are depicted as creatures with scrawny necks, small mouths, emaciated limbs and bloated bellies associated with severe malnutrition. The cormorant from Kaneko Tōhta’s haiku are large, long-necked seabirds with a distensible pouch under their bills for holding fish and synonymous for having a voracious appetite. In the west, the word is sometimes used to describe a greedy person. In Japan, cormorants have long been used by fishermen, who place a ring around their necks to keep them from swallowing the fish they caught. Numerous celebrated haiku have been written about this practice.

The territory of the “gakis” is the domain of thirst, where occupants are constantly seeking outside themselves to curtail a voracious longing for relief or fulfillment. The imagery suggests a spiritual state which can be seen in everyday life--right in the midst of unremarkable affairs. To one degree or another, craving is a condition which everyone suffers from at some point in their lives. The model of the gaki also suggests the unfeed and unseen psychic aspects, which if left unchecked and acknowledged can manifest in unfortunate ways.

On the extreme end of the hungry ghost realm are transparent examples of craving such as severe substance dependencies, or addictions to food, technology, shopping and sex. These are often recognizable and gripping examples of yearning--where our suffering is most apparent, but sometimes necessary to recognize the first Noble Truth. Because of their evident and clear manifestation, such addictions might also be where clear recognition of suffering begins.

On the everyday level, this condition is more subtle: the elusive dis-ease of someone who has anxious needs—the phantom itch that cannot be relieved. Imagine, for example, arriving at an unspoiled beach, and, after a time, noticing the wish for the water to be a little bit bluer, or having a few more palm trees or for the sky a little less cloudy. I had a friend who moved from Eugene, Oregon to Palo Alto. While living in Eugene he owned a modest, functional car and thought little of how the car compared to other cars. However, after about six months in Palo Alto and Silicon Valley, he noticed the subtle yearning for a newer, slightly more exotic car. And, when the wish for a newer car was not fulfilled, he noticed a certain understated suffering. These are garden-variety examples of hungry ghosts. In instances such as these, the problem lies in trying to satisfy an inner need for wisdom, equanimity, or peace of mind through grasping after external things, instead of cultivating empty-handed acceptance, which is the real solution. How often our attempts to obtain the things we want are like this.

“On the highest spiritual level, the state of being in the hungry ghost realm is the state of someone who desperately wants to know the Truth, but who cannot accept the teaching. She knows she is suffering and that religious practice can be of help, but she just cannot stop resisting and holding on to her personal opinions. Wanting the Dharma, she goes to drink, but her throat will not open to accept it. Each time she tastes the teaching it turns to fire in her mouth.,” writes Rev. Carlson.

In each frame of the 12-fold chain of dependent origination there is the image of Buddha, who is offering what is needed specific to the territory. In the Hungry Ghost Realm, he is offering the heavenly food of self-acceptance. To engage in this realm is to take-on the activity of self-acceptance, to acknowledge our own ravenous spirits and to live in a  sea where cormorants and hungry ghosts have already swum.

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