One day in the Upper Hamlet of Plum Village
I happened to see a young lady walking alone.
And I had the feeling that she was not a human being.
She was like a ghost.
I knew right away that...
she was one of the "hungry ghosts" of our society
coming from a broken family or coming from a society that...
does not recognize you, that has made you suffer...
coming from a tradition that is not capable of...
nourishing you or communicating to you.
And in the past 12 years I have met several hungry ghosts like that.
They are without any root. They don't believe in their family.
They get angry at their parents.
They get angry at their society. They get angry at their tradition.
They want to leave everything behind
and go around looking for something to belong to,
looking for something beautiful,
something good, something true to believe in.
Many of them have come to practice centers like Plum Village.
It's very difficult to help these people. They have no roots.
It's very difficult for them to absorb a teaching
because they don't trust easily.
You have to do your best in order to...
earn their trust before you can help.
Our society is organized in such a way
that we produce tens of thousands of hungry ghosts every day.
They have not received love from their parents, the society, the tradition
Nobody has understood them. That is why...
they are very hungry for love and understanding
And they are looking for something to believe in.
Hungry ghosts, even if they have a big belly like this, they have a very tiny throat
as small as a needle, it is described in the sacred text.
A hungry ghost has a throat that is as small as a needle,
so even if you have a lot to offer, it's very difficult for them to absorb.
Even if you have plenty of food,
plenty of water, plenty of love to offer, it's difficult for them to absorb
because nobody has understood them.
Nobody has loved them. They suspect everything.
They suspect everyone.
We have helped a certain number of hungry ghosts like that.
We know that it is difficult.
We know that we need each other in order to help.
We have to reorganize our society in such a way that...
we stop producing more hungry ghosts. It's very important.
We should practice looking deeply in order to be able to understand these hungry ghosts
and not to continue to blame them.
Because they have not received any understanding
and therefore any love.
Each person, in order to be happy and stable,
should have at least two families.
The first is the blood family
in which father and mother represent...
the youngest generation of ancestors.
If your parents are happy with each other,
they'll be able...
to transmit to you the values of your ancestors...
the love and trust that are in them in the form of seeds,
and you have roots in your blood family.
If you are in good terms with your parents,
you are connected with your ancestors through your parents.
But if you are not in good terms with your parents,
you get disconnected with all your ancestors.
You become a person without roots.
And you can become very easily a hungry ghost.
The other family is the spiritual family... You also have ancestors.
And if the people, who represent your tradition, are not happy enough,
if they have not been lucky enough to receive the jewels of your tradition,
they would not be able to transmit them to you.
They would not be able to understand you and your needs.
They could impose on you things you don't like.
Communication between them and you is not possible.
You suffer, and you want to get away from your own tradition.
And if you are...
in battle with your rabbi, with your pastor, with your priest,
you get disconnected with your spiritual ancestors.
And you become a hungry ghost.
And having so much suffering within yourself,
you make the person you love suffer. And if you have children,
you make them suffer also. And they too will become hungry ghosts.
That is why it's so important to practice looking deeply
to find out what is wrong with our families,
what is wrong within our blood family, what is wrong within our spiritual family.
The practice of mindful looking may be very helpful
in order for you to understand your parents
and the people who represent your tradition.
If your parents do not, cannot embody the values of your ancestors,
if your priest, your rabbi, your pastor...
cannot embody the values of your tradition,
there must be causes we have to look deeply.
And when we are capable of looking deeply,
the insight will come, and that will help us...
to accept, to have compassion.
And going back home to help our parents,
to help our rabbi, our priest, our pastor,
become possible.
There was a young American who came to Plum Village
and told me that he was so angry at his father...
to the point that even after his father's passing away
he still could not reconcile with him.
And I helped him by the teaching of the "emptiness of transmission."
Emptiness of transmission is a way of looking deeply in order to...
recognize that you are one with your parents.
You are only a continuation of your parents.
Getting angry at your parents is to get angry at yourself.
When we talk about a transmission, we talk about 'the one who transmits,'
'the object transmitted,' and 'the receiver of the transmission.'
...Three things.
When you have a chance to take a shower,
you have a chance to look at your body as the object of transmission.
And you think of your parents as the transmitters.
Your body and your consciousness as the object transmitted.
And you are the receiver of the transmission.
But looking deeply, we see that three of them are empty of a separate self.
The question we ask is "what did your parents transmit?"
And if you practice looking deeply, you see that...
YOUR PARENTS transmitted THEMSELVES to YOU.
Your body and all the seeds that you carry within your consciousness...
ARE your parents.
They did not transmit anything less than themselves.
All the seeds of suffering, happiness and talent they received from the ancestors...
they have transmitted everything to you.
So the transmitters and the transmitted are one,
and you are also one with the object transmitted.
So you cannot escape the fact that you are only the continuation of your father.
You are your father.
And to reconcile with your father is to reconcile with yourself.
There is no other way.
That young man put a picture of his father on his desk with a little lamp.
Every time he gets close to his desk
he would look in the eyes of his father and practice breathing in and out...
to touch the fact that he is his father... he is only a continuation of his father.
And he realized the fact that his father...
was not capable of transmitting to him the seeds of love and trust
that lie deep in his consciousness,
because he did not have the capacity to do so.
He was not helped by anyone to touch these seeds in order for them to get nourishment.
And, of course, the seeds of trust and love in him...
were covered up by so many layers of suffering.
When you have become aware of that, you can forgive.
You can understand.
There is a wonderful guided meditation on the five-year-old boy
that we offer to hungry ghosts who come to Plum Village:
"Breathing in, I see myself as a five-year-old boy or girl.
Breathing out, I smile to that five-year-old boy or girl...
who is me."
And that you practice for one or two weeks.
A five-year-old boy or girl is always very vulnerable...
very fragile.
A stern look may already hurt him or her.
A shout may already hurt him or her.
We are very fragile when we're five.
And if you see yourself as a five-year-old boy like that
and if you breathe out and smile to you,
that smile will be the smile of compassion and understanding.
If I suffer because, as a five-year-old boy, I was deeply wounded [by parents],
two weeks later I could do the other half of the practice:
"Breathing in, I see my father as a five-year-old boy.
Breathing out, I smile to the five-year-old boy that was my father."
Maybe you have not imagined...
that your father could be a five-year-old boy, but he was a five-year-old boy.
He had been a five-year-old boy.
And if you are capable of breathing in
and seeing your father as a five-year-old boy,
you would see that he is also fragile, vulnerable to get hurt easily.
And he may be like you, the victim of your grandfather.
And practice like that, smiling to that five-year-old boy with compassion.
One day you understand that your father is also a victim.
That is why he was not capable of nourishing himself...
with the seeds of love and trust.
And if you don't practice,
the seeds of love and trust in you will remain very small...
and tomorrow when you have a child, you will do exactly like your father.
The wheel of Samsara.
Many have profited from that exercise.
They have gone back to help their own parents.
And through their parents, they got connected again with their ancestors.
And the same practice can be used for your tradition, your spiritual family.
If you understand...
by the practice of mindfulness
you might discover that there are values in your own tradition.
I always tell my students...
that the equivalent of mindfulness could be seen...
in the tradition of Judaism and Christianity.
And when you have practiced mindfulness in a Buddhist practice center,
you may discover that these jewels are also in your tradition.
And you are urged to go back in order to help out...
to rediscover these values for your own nourishment
and the nourishment of your children.
Because a person without roots cannot be a happy person.
Getting back to touch our roots and rediscover the positive seeds,
the jewels within our tradition -- blood or spiritual
is a very important practice.
And the practice of mindfulness can help.