Come Home to Yourself
When I first heard the Buddhist description of hungry ghosts — beings with stomachs as big as caves and throats as narrow as pins — I was positive I was going straight to hell as a hungry ghost. After all, this was an exact description of my experience with food. And not just with food, but also with life.
After years of being haunted by this image, I think I’ve figured out what the hunger is about. It’s about missing my own life. It’s about having food (both physical and emotional) right there, and not being able to taste it because my attention is somewhere else. We’re all walking around hungry for an elusive something, and we’re missing the very thing that could fill us: showing up, being present in our own lives.
My friend James, a frequent curmudgeon and always successful businessman, recently told me he was amazed to realize that when he was lifting his foot and was actually aware of lifting it, he was completely happy. He said, “I know this sounds odd, but I feel the kind of happy I only thought I could be if the deal I am working on were to come through next week. I mean, the kind of happy that gives happiness its good name.”
James was talking about showing up for his own life, feeling alive. When he was aware of his everyday movements, he felt that all of him was living his life, instead of his mind being off planning his next meeting while his body was walking, riding in the car, or climbing stairs. James was talking about a quality that we already have because we are born with it. It is called presence — being (body, mind, and soul) where you are and feeling it.
Every day, we open our eyes, get out of bed, eat breakfast, brush our teeth, talk to our families, do our work. And most of the time, our minds are somewhere else. When we get out of bed, we are thinking about something we should have done yesterday; when we talk to our children, we are thinking about the phone call we need to make; when we walk to the bathroom, we are thinking about the chocolate we shouldn’t have eaten. Or want to eat. Or are going to eat. Or how great our lives are going to be when we lose weight or get a promotion or fall in love. …
But Geneen Roth tells us: “When you are present, nothing is missing. Time seems to stretch. A day seems like a week, like a year”
The Vibrant Channeled Creator 