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Jealousy
Have you ever had an ongoing case of it, like relationship jealousy with a sibling or long-term friend over their relationships or lives? A kind of resentment where you might think you're okay with your life until you have too much experience of theirs?
If so, have you dealt with it effectively through meditation and study, and how? What worked for you?
This is something I really want to turn my mind around on.
If so, have you dealt with it effectively through meditation and study, and how? What worked for you?
This is something I really want to turn my mind around on.
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Comments
brian
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that buddhism has a similar term - Mudita or Unselfish Joy - finding joy in the happiness or success of others. There's some good resources on that here: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/various/wheel170.html and I'm sure you'll find more if you look around.
In my experience this has been a matter of meeting my reaction in a mindful and skillful manner. I have been fighting with feelings of jealousy since I was a teenager (read, a long time ago), usually by just pushing those feeling away or ignoring them. After I've learned about Compersion, I had an alternative. When I am faced with a jealous reaction in my mind and am mindful enough to notice it at the reaction level, here's what I do:
- Feel compassion for myself, what I'm experiencing is a natural response and there's no need to beat myself up for it anymore than I already am.
- Next, focus on the joy in the situation: here's someone I care for, feeling happy and joy. Either because they are sharing a loving moment with someone they love or because they have found some new success in life. Either way, here's a person experiencing joy.
- Last, I try to feel happiness for the person or people involved in their joy. I don't have to be involved in order to be happy for someone. Just be happy for them feeling happy, call it compersion or mudita, it's inside you and you can find it and I bet you won't even have to look far.
The nice thing about this, is the more you do this, the more it happens naturally and then (slowly) becomes a part of your life.
HTH.
1. I have a long history of difficulty with being happy for others (unless it was about something I've never wanted, or I got something out of it, too).
2. This is the second issue I've brought up where I notice my shortage of compassion for myself. I do beat myself up a lot over what I consider to be my moral failings.
My jealousy is primarily about a sister and a friend who have both achieved advanced education (I didn't finish college), and spouses that are wonderful people and seem to be great matches (I lost my husband 10 years ago, and even though I cared for him and mourn the loss, I'm not sure I can say we were a great match).
I have a challenging and interesting job, I have a good many friends and outside activities, and most of the time don't hate the fact that I'm not in a couple. Until I get too close to these particular people, and then I feel like my life isn't fulfilling enough.
Compersion. . . hmmmm. . .
Thank you Jinzang. Do you have a particular Pema Chodron book in mind? I'm getting ready to start her How to Meditate book and have Don't Bite the Hook on order (which I'm really looking forward to).
Two things:
1. You are not alone. Far from it. I suspect this is quite a universal problem.
2. The thing that helps me be compassionate towards myself when one of those "moral failings" appears is to remind myself of the previous point.
Examples: When I'm being judgmental (another failing I struggle with) I remind myself "This is the judgmental mind, everybody has one." (I think I got this phrase from Jack Kornfield's The Wise Heart).
When I start planning for lunch during my morning meditation, I recognize that it's my planning mind in action and let it go.
When I feel jealousy or impatience or whatever, I might think to myself "Oh hello, Jealousy, nice to see you today, thank you for showing up." Often this is enough for me to be able to move on or at least start that process.
I find that recognizing that emotion, often gives it just enough room to express itself and go then go away. It also serves as a reminder to myself that I am only human and therefore subject to human failings.
Bonus points: sit for a few minutes with the "bad" emotion and try to study it from all angles together with your response to this emotion showing up. It might be painful but you're liable to learn a lot.
Thank you again, Jinzang.
Limbo, these are very helpful. This is kind of what I need at this stage--I look forward to the day when I actually remember to stop and think about what is happening at the moment.
"This is the judgmental mind. Everybody has one." I should write this on a card and tape it to my mirror so I see it first thing in the morning.