The Fundamental Cause of Becoming a Sentient Being in the Ghost Realm

The characteristic of ghosts is greed and stinginess, so a person with a greedy and stingy mind will, at the end of their life, certainly be reborn in the ghost realm, regardless of what they are greedy or stingy about. Hungry ghosts and malevolent ghosts both belong to the sentient beings of the ghost realm. The mental disposition of hungry ghosts is extremely greedy and stingy, and therefore they have nothing at all, are extremely impoverished, cannot get food or drink, and cannot get water; when they approach water, the water turns into fire—this is extremely distressing. The mental disposition of malevolent ghosts is evil; they often come out to harm other sentient beings, including humans. Most beings in the ghost realm are called ghosts—these are ordinary ghosts, distinct from hungry ghosts and malevolent ghosts. Greed in sentient beings does not only refer to money and material possessions; within the world of the five aggregates (pañca-skandha), greed for any dharma whatsoever is greed, including the bodily, verbal, and mental actions that everyone considers perfectly normal—all of these are greed, all are causes for becoming a ghost. The scope of greed is extremely broad.

There was an old lady in my neighborhood. While she was alive, three old men in the courtyard often played mahjong with her; the three old men died one after another, and finally the old lady also died. After being reborn in the ghost realm for a while, she appeared in her daughter's dream asking for a mahjong set, so her daughter burned a paper mahjong set for her. Later she appeared in a dream again, telling them that she was still playing mahjong with the three deceased old men. They were relatively fortunate ghosts; they had not committed any great evil karma while alive, were rather fond of play, and after death continued playing in the ghost realm. I have also encountered people who engaged in music, painting, and the arts while alive; after death they became ghosts, then took faith in Buddhism, and possessed the bodies of Buddhist believers to go to temples to cultivate merit and perform virtuous deeds. These people engaged in the arts are also greedy—they are attached to art with emotional fondness, greedily clinging and unwilling to let go, and after death they become ghosts. Being fond of the qin, chess, calligraphy, painting, and so on—all of these belong to greed. The literati, poets, writers, essayists, and the like of the past mostly became ghosts after death as well; they all had habits of greed. Whatever you like will bind you, and you cannot attain liberation.

There is also another kind of serious greed: greed for sensual desire, for love, and for emotional attachment. After death, one becomes a ghost of passion or a ghost of lust. Many people regard emotional attachment as something everyone naturally should have, and even feel proud of developing feelings for others, praising those full of passion, praising things like romantic love and emotional attachment. In fact, emotional attachment is the most serious form of greed, and it is also the primary cause of birth-and-death in saṃsāra. The Buddha told us in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra (Laṅkāvatāra... no—Lengyan Jing) that those with heavy emotional attachment will certainly fall into the three evil destinies: with nine parts emotion and one part thought, one sinks beneath the water wheel—that is the hells; with seven parts emotion and three parts thought, one is born in the ghost realm; with emotion and thought in equal measure, one is born in the human world; with little emotion and much thought, the mind can soar upward, and one is born in the heavens. Thought represents rationality; when the mind is light, one soars upward and is born in the good destinies. Emotion is heavy and turbid; when the mind is heavy, one will certainly fall into the three evil destinies.

Regardless of whether emotional attachment is reasonable or not from the perspective of human laws and morality, from the perspective of consequences and cause and effect it is unreasonable and should not exist. Emotion is greedy craving; where there is craving there is water, and where there is water it must flow downward. As soon as many people develop feelings, they compose poems and paint pictures to express and expand their emotions, considering it beautiful, sincere, and romantic, thinking that being passionate is wholesome. In reality, being passionate is unwholesome; it harms others and oneself, and both fall into the three lower destinies, suffering the pain of saṃsāra and the suffering of passion. Many feelings of suffering are summoned forth because of emotional attachment; without emotional attachment there is no clinging, and there would be no feelings of suffering.

Even proper emotional attachments have evil retributions and painful retributions; then improper emotional attachments—emotions that should not arise, emotions that harm others' interests, immoral emotions, emotions that others find repugnant—have even greater evil retributions and painful retributions. What is called "proper" is that which the law permits and protects, and which moral norms also permit; "improper" is the opposite—that which the law does not permit or protect, and which moral norms also condemn and do not allow. After we study Buddhism, we should watch over our own minds more; whatever greedy craving and emotional attachment we can subdue, we should subdue as much as possible; whatever we can restrain, we should restrain as much as possible. After all, greedy craving is not wholesome dharma; it belongs to the afflictions and is unwholesome dharma. Quite a few people believe that by forming many connections with people, they will be able to liberate them in future lives, and so they recklessly and frequently interact with the opposite sex, and when improper feelings arise they do not restrain them, letting them develop, thinking that this forms wholesome karmic connections and that they can liberate each other. Little do they know that within one great kalpa, they may not necessarily have the ability to liberate a person of the opposite sex; emotional entanglements will cause both self and others to fall into evil destinies and suffer for many kalpas, and even after emerging from the evil destinies after so many kalpas, they still lack the ability to liberate the other person, because they have not eradicated the affliction of greedy craving, and will certainly fall into evil destinies because of greedy craving.

Having the intention to liberate sentient beings is wholesome, but one must also understand the principles and know the Dharma; otherwise the wholesome becomes unwholesome—not only failing to liberate sentient beings, but being liberated by them instead, with the loss outweighing the gain. Those who use this as an excuse should all the more rein in their horses at the cliff's edge, for cause and effect has never spared anyone. To summarize: in the Sahā world, as long as one develops greedy craving toward any dharma or any state of mind—delighting in it, rejoicing in it, clinging to it, unwilling to let go—it all belongs to greed. Therefore, greed generally leads to falling into the ghost realm to repay karmic results; cause and effect is not false.