Donald Trump is a Hungry Ghost

Last updated on: May 31, 2017 at 10:32 am by Daniel P. (Danny) Coleman

Donald Trump is a Hungry Ghost 2017-05-31T10:32:38-07:00 Daniel P. (Danny) Coleman

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In Asian mythology there are malevolent beings called “hungry ghosts.” Hungry ghosts have huge stomachs, but tiny mouths and throats. As a result, they can never satisfy their immense cravings, and live in continuous torment and rage.

Monsters and ghosts, of course, are metaphors for aspects of the human condition. The lesson of the hungry ghosts is that constant craving for more and more and more only leads to one’s own suffering, as the appetites become insatiable. We see this in the myriad addictions which plague our culture. The hungry ghosts are tragic figures, trapped in their own hell.

Hungry ghosts drain off the chi–the lifeforce–of the living. This is reminiscent of the Greek tragedies, in which flawed human rulers committed misdeeds which brought miasma (plague, catastrophe, divine retribution) upon the land–often as a result of their own cravings for power or sex or riches or revenge. Ultimately, the miasma could only be discharged via some terrible sacrificial cost. It was a sort of societal karma (the terrible cost of the U.S. Civil War as the result of centuries of slavery comes to mind as another example).

When I look at Donald Trump, I see a hungry ghost. I see a man whose life is ruled by the need to convince the world that he has it all, but who is suffering intensely because his craving for adulation is never satisfied. In Trump I see a ruler who, as a result of his torment, will likely bring some form of miasma upon the land, with a resultant cost to us all. My prayer for Donald Trump is that he will find peace within himself–one way or another–for his sake and ours.

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