#tanha

I think he is a blend of a Preta and an Asura.

Pretas are hideous and sorrowful. Asuras are outwardly attractive yet deeply malicious at heart.

Let’s start with the Preta, or the Hungry Ghost in Buddhist cosmology. Tanha — thirst and craving — is their core inner drive.

The Buddha described Pretas as having throats no wider than a needle’s eye, yet bellies as huge as mountains. Tormented by insatiable hunger and thirst, they rush frantically toward food and water, only for it to turn into flames the moment it touches their lips. Burdened by heavy karmic obstacles, clear rivers appear to them as pus and blood. They crave endlessly, yet never find satisfaction.

Look at Nino.

Like a Preta with a needle-thin throat: he can swallow women’s affection, yet he can never truly digest a real relationship. He has no understanding of what love even is. The moment love enters his life, it vanishes into nothing.

His belly is like a mountain—his desires keep swelling without end, not even sparing his daughter's nanny.

Everything he sees turns to pus and blood. To him, women are merely tools to feed his lust, his ego, and his hunger for fame. He cannot recognize genuine love, quiet companionship, or selfless devotion.

In Buddhism, all realms of sentient beings are essentially different states of mind, projecting different forms of existence. Though Nino is an ordinary human, he lives out the karmic state of a Preta right here in the human world.

That's why he makes readers so uncomfortable. People sense something inhuman about him, yet rationally know he is still a human being. They feel a deep unease, yet cannot put their finger on why.

In the eyes of a Bodhisattva, he is simply a sick person, and all his actions are merely symptoms of his inner affliction.

This is why I said earlier a Bodhisattva would quietly plant karmic seeds for him. Maybe one day a thought will suddenly cross Nino’s mind: I’m tired. What is the point of all this?

That faint, cool sense of weariness is the brief moment when the karmic fires of the Preta realm die down. In that instant, he draws just a little closer to being truly human.

Still, that same craving that defines the Preta exists in all of us to varying degrees. It' s fundamentally an objective condition of mortal life. We get temporarily addicted to something, grow bored of it, then chase after something new.

But this never mean we should think: Nino is insatiable, and so am I, so I' m just like him, so I 'm a bad person — and drown ourselves in shame. That's nothing but self-attack. We must never do that.

Even Bodhisattvas don't condemn Nino, so there is no need for us to be harsh on ourselves. We may suffer at times, yet we hold ourselves back from hurting others.

Nino’s problem is not that he suffers. It's that he does not even realize he is suffering at all. He never reflects on himself, exploits others without boundaries, and has no willingness to mend his own ways.

People like Nino embody the hungry ghost nature severely, trapped in their own obsessions, hurting both others and themselves.

Some are moderate: addicted to material and immaterial desires, prone to self-destruction, yet they never harm anyone else.

Most people are mild cases. They feel a deep sense of lack now and then, driven to satisfy certain cravings, yet they can soon return to inner balance.

All of us have dwelt in the hungry ghost state to some extent. No one is entirely free of hungry ghost tendencies, save for the Arhats, who have cut off all afflictions — the very root where craving arises.

We don't need to drive away the hungry ghost within us. What we need is to recognize it, admit its existence, and gradually stop being ruled by it.

Beings in the hungry ghost realm have no idea what they are. The moment they become aware, they are no longer purely hungry ghosts—they are waking up.

From this perspective, the hungry ghost is none other than Buddha-nature.

It's not that they eventually attain enlightenment and become Buddha after waking up. Rather, they are Buddha right in the present moment. It follows the same truth: within the very moment of affliction lies Bodhi.

The craving of the hungry ghost and the enlightenment of the Buddha are one and the same energy.

The mind trapped in craving of the hungry ghost, and the mind that the Buddha uses to liberate all beings, are the very same mind — awareness itself.

The hungry ghost craves, yet does not know it's craving. It believes something outside itself can fill the void, so it grasps relentlessly.

The Buddha also experiences the sensation of craving, yet knows it's merely a fleeting feeling arising within awareness. He does not grasp at it, and thus attains enlightenment.

A man tormented by scabies goes to warm himself by the fire. While by the fire, the itching fades temporarily, but as soon as he leaves, it grows far worse.

This is exactly how Tanha(thirst) works. You think satisfying it will calm it down, yet you are only adding fuel to the fire.

Such is the nature of craving: it arises again immediately after being fulfilled.

When Nino had Lila, he only felt more hollow. When he had Lenù, he only wanted to run away. This is destined by the very structure of Tanha.

I have to say I enjoy reading those comments, they're so funny. I think these readers are so lovely, not because they bash Nino, but because they really take the time to dig into his character, even though they can’t stand him at all.

At first, amid all the brutish, violent men surrounding Lenu and Lila, Nino stood out from the crowd. He is sensitive and affectionate, and left everyone with a wonderful first impression. The better people thought of him then, the more furious they are when his true colors come to light. No rock bottom for this character.

But even people like Nino have a heart too.

His heart—his true awareness—is so deeply clouded by the five aggregates that it lies dormant deep within the earth, never given a chance to see the light of day. He does not even realize he possesses this true inner awareness at all.

His manas consciousness is deeply entrenched. He firmly believes in a solid, separate “self” that constantly needs validation. Without that affirmation, he feels like he’s ceasing to exist. He has never known true freedom, because he’s entirely ruled by this manas.

Buddhism also has a key term: tanha, or craving. Literally it means “thirst”. The Buddha used it to describe that burning, restless, uncontrollable longing inside all living beings.

A traveler lost in the desert craves water to survive, but tanha is far more dangerous. It’s like being addicted to the very state of craving itself.

To a bodhisattva looking at Nino, he is just like a fish thrashing wildly on a dry riverbed—desperate to swim far away, only churning up mud in vain.

In Buddhist teachings, tanha falls into three categories:

First, Kāma-taṇhā: craving for sensual pleasure. Nino chases one new romance, one new body, one new thrill after another.

Second, Bhava-taṇhā: craving for existence—the desire to keep living, to become someone important, to be remembered. That’s why Nino chases academic status and political fame relentlessly.

Third, Vibhava-taṇhā: craving for non-existence—the urge to destroy, run away, and avoid reality. Whenever a relationship grows serious, Nino wants to escape; he hates taking responsibility.

These three cravings work inside him all at once, like three blazing chariots he can never stop. His restless mind never settles down. This is exactly what the Buddhist sutras refer to as "The frantic mind knows no rest".

We all carry this innate craving for love in life. It’s the inevitable state of ordinary beings veiled by the five aggregates. But Nino is an extreme case.

His inner void comes down to never having the chance to nurture any root of goodness. Buddhism teaches that all sentient beings possess Buddha-nature, and Nino was born with it too. Yet his upbringing—a hypocritical father, a family riddled with hidden secrets—left the seeds of kindness in him with no room to take root and grow.

He never believes in sincerity, nor does he see his actions as harming others. All his intelligence and wit only serve to strengthen his ego-clinging. That’s why readers detest him so deeply. They retrace his every move, try to dig into the motives behind his behavior, and trace it back to his family background.

But Ferrante barely delves into this side of him. Readers can only scratch the surface, knowing nothing more than that he had a terrible father. So I turn to Buddhist concepts to untangle these deeper layers of Nino.

From a Bodhisattva’s perspective, Nino is like an actor completely swallowed by his role. The actor himself is drowning in agony, having forgotten who he truly is, yet he truly believes what he’s chasing will make him happy.

The reason Nino has no real heart is that he has never once looked inward. All his energy is spent grasping outwardly, trying to fill the hollow of a self that does not truly exist.

His good karmic conditions are simply not ripe. That is why a Bodhisattva would never attempt to reform or awaken him—his karmic obstacles are far too deeply entrenched.

Even if he were exposed to Buddhist teachings, he would only parrot the words, disguise himself as a detached, ascetic sage, and go on deceiving women all the same, turning himself into a lecherous monk. Wouldn’t that just be sheer folly?

Instead, a Bodhisattva would quietly plant karmic seeds for him, waiting for the day when Nino loses everything because of his own schemes, broken by overwhelming suffering.

O desejo, no budismo, é uma força complexa, sendo frequentemente apontada como a origem do sofrimento. Contudo, a tradução única para “desejo” simplifica a riqueza conceitual presente nos termos páli taṇhā e chandā. Taṇhā representa a sede insaciável, o anseio que aprisiona, enquanto chandā expressa a aspiração saudável. Este artigo analisa essa distinção fundamental, demonstrando que a natureza…

it just is.

Never forget. the root of all suffering is wanting.