Recorded on October 30, 2026, at Boundless Mind Temple in Brooklyn, NY
On the first day of our three-day fall sesshin, Charlie Korin Pokorny walks us through the Hungry Ghost ceremony — sometimes called the Gate of Sweet Dew — that the sangha would hold together the next day, on October 31. With rice, fruit, and maybe a few Skittles, the ceremony aims to make a small offering fill the universe, infusing food with Dharma and conferring the mind of awakening and the bodhisattva precepts on all the spirits who gather. Charlie reminds us that the point isn’t to defeat or banish the hungry ghosts, but to meet them with generosity, and even intimacy, asking: what is my flaming mouth, my needle neck, my belly of unmet need? A teaching on how feeding everyone is the way we become free, in ritual, in zazen, and in sesshin.
A note on the audio: we apologize for a few brief glitchy moments in this recording due to technical difficulties.
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