"Could it be that I too have become a preta?"

[flemmings]

Stupid Facebook and its word limit. Reposted here.

Someone asked Thich Nhat Hanh what the realm of the hungry ghosts is like. (Preta, right? or gaki in Japanese: swollen- bellied thin-necked beings, whose desires torment them constantly, but can never be satisfied.) He answered: 'America.'

Trying to find actual *news* on the webpage of the GlobbyMail-- 'Canada's national newspaper' (sic)-- amid the barrage of articles on stocks, bonds, trading tips, commodities to watch out for, what kind of car to buy, the best hotels in New York, unknown getaways in the South Seas, nado nado, I'm inclined to agree. Shall still go on buying lottery tickets, of course.

("In addition to hunger, Pretas suffer from immoderate heat and cold; they find that even the moon scorches them in the summer, while the sun freezes them in the winter." Sounds like me, yup.)

Comments

[incandescens]

Surely not a preta, unless a preta sought to devour literature?

I can hardly ever bring myself to buy lottery tickets. The result of reading statistics at university. It's very depressing. Especially when a colleague wins something on it.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I won $5 on yesterday's lottery! So nyahh to your statistics!

I don't expect to win big. The odds are against it. (Though someone beats the odds often enough.) It's my $3 worth of hope per week, occasionally rewarded by a $5 prize. But there's an anomaly in simultaneously cultivating detachment from desires and buying tickets so that I may, possibly, continue to indulge those same desires.

(Anyway, as I know from experience, the greatest pleasure in having money is being able to give it away. That too is a desire to be detached from.)

[incandescens]

(sighs) Statistics. Never do what they're supposed to.

And then there's the desiring to be detached from desires. You can't win. :)