An Introduction to Hungry Ghosts

What is a Hungry Ghost?

When Depeche Mode sings “I just can’t get enough”, they’re sing about romance, or lust, or infatuation – take your pick. When a Hungry Ghost sings, talks, thinks about not getting enough he means of everything. The motto of a Hungry Ghost is “more is never enough.”

In Buddhist thinking, there are six realms of existence:

Gods (Devas)
Demigods (Asura)
Humans (you and me)
Animals
Hungry Ghosts (Preta)
Hell Realm (Naraka)
These realms exist in a heirarchy. Gods at the top and Hungry Ghosts at the bottom. You will notice that humans are right in the middle. It might be easiest to think of realms as a measure of how much suffering a being has to put up with. We’re in the middle so it could go either way – less than some and more than others. (see the chart below)