Meditation On Jealousy & Its Antidotes

Join Venerable Sangye Khadro in examining the mental affliction, or feeling, of jealousy and the antidotes to overcome it. Without reflecting on our own experience, we may not recognize the feeling of jealousy when it arises. If unobserved, it may cause us to do and say things we later regret, harming relationships.

Practices like this analytical meditation allow us to reclaim our happiness and joy while improving our attitude towards others and rejoicing in their good circumstances.

Transcript

So for the meditation today we'll do a meditation on jealousy or envy.

I think it's pretty obvious what this state of mind is so we'll just try to look for an example of it in our own mind when we had this state of mind and then look at some antidotes,

Things we can do when we do find our mind afflicted by this very painful state.

So let's begin with some silence to settle down in the present and then generate a positive motivation.

Make sure you're sitting in a comfortable position.

It's also important to be relaxed so if you do notice any tension anywhere in your body,

See if you can let it go,

Let it disappear.

And also try to clear your mind of thoughts,

Thoughts of the past,

Things you were doing earlier today or yesterday or anytime in the past,

And also thoughts of the future about what you're going to do later today,

Tomorrow,

And anytime in the future.

Leave aside all those thoughts,

Just let your mind be in the present moment and present place.

And then generate a positive altruistic motivation for doing this meditation.

So the causes of suffering,

In particular afflicted states of mind,

Which we have and other people who are not enlightened beings still have in their minds.

And so if we can understand these better in our own experience and learn ways of reducing them and overcoming them,

We'll be better able to help other people who are afflicted by these.

It's good to think of benefiting not just yourself but also other people,

Helping them to be free of these causes of suffering and the suffering that arise from them.

And if you feel comfortable with the idea,

You can also think of this as a factor in the path to enlightenment.

That's your ultimate long-term goal,

Becoming enlightened,

To be able to help all other beings in the best possible way.

You you you So let's start by getting in touch with this state of mind.

It's actually a mental factor,

One of the secondary mental afflictions,

Sometimes called jealousy or envy.

So this arises in our mind when we observe that another person has something that we don't have but we want.

So it could be something material,

Material object,

Or it could be physical attributes such as beauty,

Attractiveness,

Or physical skills,

Abilities,

Or it could be something more internal like mental qualities like intelligence or a sense of humor or a kind heart.

So when we observe another person who has one of these things or qualities that we wish to have but feel that we do not have,

Then this mind of jealousy can arise.

And it could be regarding other things as well,

More abstract things like knowledge or experiences.

It can even occur in the context of a spiritual practice,

The spiritual community.

You notice that someone is able to sit and meditate longer than we are and they don't seem to be as restless as we are.

They seem to have a lot more knowledge,

A lot more experience than we do.

So even among people in a spiritual community,

Jealousy can arise.

It can also arise in relationships.

If we think that someone is closer to our spiritual teacher,

Spends more time with them,

Gets more attention from them,

That can also give rise to jealousy.

So spend some time looking into your own experiences and see if you can remember a time when you felt jealous or envious of another person.

You you you So if we can recognize jealousy or envy in ourselves,

It's something that arises occasionally and we can recognize it as an unwholesome state of mind.

That's something we really feel good about or proud of,

But you can see it's not a good way to think or feel.

There are things we can do to counteract jealousy.

So one thing that's helpful is just to get really clear in our mind how jealousy is problematic and it leads to problems and it has faults rather than it's something positive that we want to have more of,

We want to cultivate or let ourselves get caught up in.

So let's look at some of the faults of jealousy.

So one is just the effect that it has on our mind as soon as it arises,

The immediate effect.

So we can probably recognize that it disturbs our mind,

Our mind isn't peaceful and calm and happy when there is jealousy present.

So it puts our mind into an unpeaceful,

Unhappy,

Disturbed state.

Can also affect our behavior.

We have a strong feeling of jealousy,

Can influence things that we do,

Things that we say.

So we may say things that are kind of nasty,

Spiteful and we might behave in an unkind,

Unfriendly way towards the person we are jealous of.

We'll see if you can recognize that,

That can motivate unwholesome,

Unskillful behavior.

And then if we do act out our jealousy,

Our envy,

We can hurt people.

We can hurt the person we're jealous of.

And other people who might be around observing,

Witnessing this behavior of ours might lose respect for us.

They probably don't admire us for behaving in those ways.

So those are just short-term consequences of jealousy,

But then there are also long-term ones.

If we do negative actions motivated by jealousy,

We're creating negative karma,

We'll bring suffering and problems in the future.

It's also a hindrance to our practice,

Our following of the path to liberation and enlightenment.

So it will hinder our ability to attain those goals and other realizations along the way.

So what can we do about jealousy?

The actual antidote to jealousy is rejoicing,

Feeling happy,

Feeling joyful about other people's good qualities and good fortune and nice things that they have.

So feeling happy instead of envious,

Resentful.

But if we're already caught up in jealousies,

Feeling strongly jealous,

It can be difficult to immediately switch to rejoicing.

So there's some other things we can do to help our mind move in that direction.

One is to contemplate karma.

So if you accept karma,

You can think that whatever happens to us and whatever things we have,

Good fortune,

Bad fortune,

And so on,

Is the result of our own karma,

Things we did in the past.

So if someone has more than you do,

Is better off than you are,

And so on,

This is due to karma.

They created the causes to have what they have,

To be the way they are.

And if you don't have those things,

It's because you didn't create the karma.

You didn't create the right causes and conditions.

But karma isn't fixed,

It's changeable.

So if we do want to have what the other person has,

Their good qualities,

Their good fortune,

And so on,

We can start now to create the causes for that.

And then we'll be able to attain those things in the future.

But to be able to create the causes for having those things in the future,

We need to create good karma,

Virtuous karma,

Not bad karma.

And if we feel jealous and indulge in jealousy and act out of jealousy,

We're not creating good karma,

We're creating bad karma,

Negative karma.

And so that's actually going to bring more suffering,

More problems,

More deprivation in the future.

So if that makes sense to you,

Then it's more reasonable that we practice rejoicing,

Because rejoicing is virtuous.

It's a virtuous state of mind,

And if we generate that state of mind,

Even if we have to do it with effort,

It doesn't come naturally,

We have to make effort to generate rejoicing,

We're creating virtue.

And that means we're creating the causes to have more,

To have better,

To have those things that we want in the future.

So with that as a basis,

See if you can generate that attitude of rejoicing.

Go back and think about that person towards whom you felt jealous or envious,

And see if you can feel happy instead.

Just say to yourself,

Kind of force yourself to say to yourself,

I am happy for that other person.

It's wonderful that they have what they have,

That they know what they know,

That they,

You know,

Have the good fortune that they do.

Just make an effort to generate that state of mind.

Rejoicing is more in line with loving kindness,

Which is one of the positive mental factors that we're trying to develop.

Loving kindness means wishing happiness for others,

Wishing others to have happiness.

So if we genuinely feel that way,

Then when someone does have happiness,

They do experience some good fortune,

Some good things,

Doesn't it make sense that we should be happy about that rather than unhappy?

So putting more effort into cultivating genuine loving kindness,

Really wishing happiness for other people,

All other people,

All other being,

Really wanting them to be happy.

So if we make more effort to generate that state of mind and extend that attitude towards others,

Then it will be easier for us to feel happy and rejoice when others are experiencing good fortune,

And then there's less chance of being jealous,

Envious of them.

Also,

If we can rejoice,

Our own mind will be happier because jealousy is very painful.

If we indulge in envy or jealousy,

Our mind is not happy.

Our mind is unhappy,

Disturbed.

Whereas making an effort to be joyful for others' good fortune enables our mind to experience more joy,

More happiness,

And isn't that what we really want?

So let's conclude this meditation by dedicating the merit,

The positive energy of doing the meditation,

That ourselves and everyone else will find a way to overcome jealousy and other afflicted,

Disturbing states of mind,

Which are the cause of suffering.

And in that way,

May we find genuine peace and happiness and ultimately liberation from all suffering and full enlightenment.

You

Reviews

Helpful and pleasant to hear 😊 thank you so much teacher 😊

Awesome)

Beautiful! Inspiring. May I learn to rejoicing about other's fortune and talents.🙏🏻