A few years ago I read a book called The Hungry Ghost by an addictions doctor who works with the poorest and most troubled people in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, Dr. Gabor Mate. He writes about how addicted people have this empty hole in their soul that they try to fill with their substance of choice, whether it is food, alcohol, drugs, love. But they are never satisfied. The hole is a hungry ghost which leaves them even more empty.
The more I work on my recovery, the more I realize I do not hunger for food. I am fortunate to have enough. My eating is to try to fill other holes -- for love, for belonging, for connection -- all ghosts that food will never satisfy.
For today, I will remind myself that I have enough. I have love, belonging and connection when I reach for it. I have plenty of healthy food and water available. Truly, I am blessed. My hungry ghost is an illusion and does not serve me.
When I googled prayers for hungry ghosts, I am surprised at how many traditions have a response. Whether it is Christian Catholics with the idea of souls in purgatory or Buddhists or Wiccans, there seems to be a shared sense that much of our pain is not entirely ours... that we carry with us suffering for other beings, ancestors, old souls, etc., and we can feed them and free both them and ourselves from suffering.
I liked this prayer over food from the Wiccan tradition:
May you never hunger.
May you never thirst.
May all your needs be fulfilled by this food.
May you be satisfied with what you receive here.
May you no longer suffer through my body... this body which is now wholly my own.
Blessed be.
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