Working With Jealousy

Our motivation is what determines the value of our actions, and it will shape our experience of this course. Venerable Tenzin Tsepal talks about why motivation matters in whatever we do, and guides us to set a beneficial motivation for this course on working with jealousy.

Buddhist teachings offer a definition of jealousy: “A disturbing emotion that comes from the depths that is an inability to bear another’s good fortune because we are attached to having possessions, opportunities, praise, reputation, and so forth for ourselves. It involves animosity and causes mental unhappiness.” Tenzin Tsepal explains what jealousy is and how to identify it when it arises.

Living in a fast-paced, modern society, competitiveness and comparing ourselves to others seem to be normal, or even encouraged by those around us. Have you considered that such habitual ways of thinking might feed your jealousy? Venerable Tenzin Tsepal brings our awareness to the thoughts that lie behind jealousy and guides a meditation to relax the competitive, comparing mind.

Jealousy breeds self-pity, which can be so seductive. But where does thinking that we’re the worst, and the world is not fair, get us? Venerable Tenzin Tsepal uses humor to show us how to stop throwing pity parties that waste our time and undermine our confidence and potential.

Once we see clearly how jealousy brings suffering to ourselves and others, we’ll naturally be motivated to overcome it. Venerable Tenzin Tsepal teaches on the disadvantages of jealousy and guides a meditation on how it affects our relationships with others and gets in the way of our highest aspirations.

It’s hard for us to admit that we’re jealous, because at its core is the painful belief that we are just not good enough. Venerable Tenzin Tsepal shares how admitting to jealousy can bring a sense of relief, and guides a meditation on cultivating self-acceptance as the first step to overcome the jealous mind.

The writer Oscar Wilde said, “There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, the other is getting it.” When we’re jealous of someone or overwhelmed by desire for an object we can’t attain, we don’t think about the problems that will come with getting what we want. Venerable Tenzin Tsepal gets us to expand our minds and think about the long-term results of getting what we want, which always includes problems in addition to the benefits we might imagine.

Venerable Tenzin Tsepal introduces the Buddhist concept of karma and how our present experience is the result of causes we have created in the past. With that in mind, we can learn to accept that others have created the causes to experience certain results. Instead of getting jealous, we can accept our present situation and focus our energy on creating the causes for beneficial future results.

The most powerful antidote to jealousy is rejoicing. Venerable Tenzin Tsepal shows us how to practice rejoicing in what we have going well, and how we can rejoice even in the challenges and difficulties we experience. In this way, all our experiences become opportunities to develop our good qualities and bring meaning to our lives. With rejoicing, we no longer get hung up over all the things we get jealous about.

To conclude the course, Venerable Tenzin Tsepal shows us how we can rejoice even in the face of the challenges and difficulties we experience every day. In this way, every experience becomes an opportunity for developing our good qualities, making our lives very rich and meaningful. Using mind training techniques, we no longer get tripped up over all the things that used to trigger jealousy.