"Who is the mischievous slanderer causing one to part from close friends?"
Jealousy.
"Painful jealousy that is unable to bear the joy or success of others."
And it's true, isn't it? When we get jealous of somebody our mind is in incredible pain.
Unbearable pain. It's funny, isn't it? Looking at somebody else being happy or creating virtue
or having a good opportunity makes us experience pain. Isn't that interesting? So you can really
see. Jealousy is so perverted in that way. Usually we see happiness, we feel happy. Jealousy,
we see happiness, good fortune... Grrr. You know? We're like tense and, you know, people
get out of control. Totally out of control with jealousy, don't they? I mean, say things,
do things, they'd never do in a right state of mind simply because they can't tolerate
the other person's happiness. And not only can they not tolerate it, they want to destroy
it. As if destroying the other person's happiness would give that happiness to us. Destroying
somebody else's reputation -- which caused them to have some good situation -- would
make us have a good reputation and have a good situation. Actually, it does the exact
opposite, doesn't it? When we destroy other people's happiness, other people respect us
less. We have a worse reputation. Jealousy is just so upside-down in terms of how it
thinks and what it motivates within us. Can you see that from your own experience? I mean, it's miserable.
So of course people get jealous over boyfriends and girlfriends, but they also get jealous
if somebody else has more stature or status at work. Or they get jealous if it seems like
the Dharma teacher is paying more attention to somebody else than to them. Or they get
jealous if somebody else is more attractive than them. Or if somebody else creates more
virtue than them. Or has the chance to go to His Holiness's teachings and they don't.
I mean, who knows what? We can get jealous over anything. And it's a really good way
to make ourselves miserable. So when you wake up in the morning and you want to feel miserable,
get jealous. It's a good way to do it.
And so here it also talks about how jealousy -- how did he express that exactly? "The mischievous
slanderer causing one to part with close friends."
So if we look, and especially if we're jealous of close friends, or we're jealous of people
who can actually benefit us. Then we create wedges in the relationship and we part from
them. Because we begin to see that person who was a friend, or a teacher, or a relative,
or a mentor, or a coach, or whoever it was, we start competing with them, seeing them
as better, getting jealous, not being able to bear it, and then doing something that
fractures the relationship or the person who was actually benefiting us.
Who was a close friend. Who was helping us.
So jealousy is totally unproductive. And it can manifest in many, many ways in our life
so in your meditation it's very good to really think about things and look in your life and
see in the variety of different ways in which jealousy has come in your life, and how you've
acted under the influence of jealousy and what the result has been.
And so again, just seeing the disadvantages of something is a very good antidote to help
us not follow it when it arises.
Another antidote for jealousy, of course, is doing the opposite of what you feel like
doing when you're jealous, which is to rejoice at the other person's virtue or good qualities,
or opportunity, or whatever it is. And say "how wonderful that is, I'm really glad they're able to do it."
I remember many years ago -- because you know as monastics we all sit in ordination order
-- and so you look up the line and like...ohh... You know, it's like ....
Jealousy comes in two ways. One is:
Oh, they're so much better than me, you know, I can't stand it.
Or: They're not as good as me, but they get to sit in front of me! That's not fair! I
should be able to sit in front. I'm a better practitioner than them. Or I've been practicing
Dharma longer than they have, I shouldn't have to sit back here. I should be able to sit up there!
And then you look down the line and it's like, somebody who's ordained after you or who's
younger? Ahhh, They know Tibetan. They've done this retreat. They can teach this and
that. They've done blah blah blah. Can't bear that either.
So you sit there, you look up, you look down. Ahhhh! (L)
And the real problem is that we're not accepting ourselves.
So it's quite a practice to learn to look up the line and look down the line and say
"I'm so glad these people have these abilities and these talents." Whatever it is that we
feel inferior about, to rejoice that other people can do it. Rejoice that they have that
ability, that knowledge, that status, that popularity, that...whatever it is. And like,
just... Well that's good. It doesn't matter that I don't have it. Somebody has it. That's really good.
And also, they do say "be careful of who you're jealous of because you may get what they have."
So you usually think "oh, if I only had what that one has, if I only had what that one
has, if I only had what that one has." But then you get it and then you get all the problems
that come with it. Don't think that other people's advantages are problem-free. Any
time you have an advantage, you also get the problems that come with that advantage. First
of all, other people are jealous of you. Which is really uncomfortable. Second of all, you
know you're going to lose what you have someday. Third of all, other people are still better than you.
So everything will bring problems to an afflicted mental state. It's true, isn't it? As long
as we're in samsara, no matter what we have, our mind can make it into a problem. And you
know, we may have all sorts of good conditions, but all we see are problems.