Listening to the cold rain fall outside my apartment window. Just a few minutes ago, sitting in meditation, following the breath mixing with the sound of this same rain, and the occasional mind chatter. There really isn't anything else to want right now, but it's easy to say that, things being so peaceful and all.
In an essay I've been reading by Sunyana Graef in the book "Hooked," she writes "We're a nation of hungry ghosts, wandering through life ... Every time a hungry ghost tries to eat something, it turns to poison." Hungry ghosts are part of a Buddhist teaching describing six realms of living, of experience. Without getting too much into that teaching, hungry ghosts are basically beings that always want, and can never get enough. Does this sound like you and me?
The ground outside my apartment is currently receiving a drink. Other times, it receives sunshine, garbage, spit, piss, and whatever else comes its way. Whether it wants certain things (rain or sun for example), I do not know. But unlike you and I, the ground doesn't seem to make a mess of things with its wanting, if it indeed has any. It wets with the rain and dries with the sun. It dents with the dropped, broken TV set, and curves up with the shovel that makes mounds out of it.
There is no way you or I can be the ground, but maybe there is something in us that can act in a similar way. To drop off the wanting, or to contain the wanting in such a way that we don't overturn everything in our wake. Let's uncover this all together.
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