: Jealousy. It doesn't feel very good, does it? First of all, we have to use our basic practice of mindfulness of the hindrances. Jealousy is a type of aversion. If we know it is jealousy we have to note it as jealousy, and then see how it makes us feel. It is very unpleasant. We try to examine this, so that we can see Dukkha, see that it is unpleasant, and try to bring up some Compassion for ourselves.
The unselfish emotion that is most effective with helping to prevent jealousy from arising is Sympathetic Joy. This is learning how to feel Joy with our own good qualities and the good qualities of others. However this meditation may not work if you have become totally caught up in jealousy, but if you use it more in your life it will help prevent jealousy from arising.
If we have a tendency towards self-criticism, then it also manifests in criticism towards others. And it manifests in jealousy towards others who have what we would like. Our materialistic culture tends to encourage feelings of unworthiness and self-criticism. How does it do that? Through negative comparisons: you're not worthy if you don't dress a certain way, look a certain way, are beautiful or handsome, obtain the love and admiration of others, or become rich and famous. And there are plenty of companies who will sell you the products to make you come closer to such an ideal. But, if you fail, it may lead to jealousy towards others who have the good fortune that we crave.
Developing the ability to appreciate ourselves, the good qualities we already possess, and the good qualities that others already possess is very helpful in lessening the tendency towards jealousy, and building the power of self-worth. We understand our self-worth and are not so dependent on such external shallow appearances. By developing more confidence within ourselves, there will be less tendency to be jealous because we won't feel threatened by another's good fortune or good qualities. Jealousy usually comes because we are setting up comparisons and we don't have enough confidence within ourselves. Or, in the case of relationships, they have good fortune and we would like to have it instead. Perhaps the person is beautiful or famous and we want it, too. So, learning how to appreciate our good qualities and the good qualities of others helps us lessen these tendencies. Feeling the power of confidence in our good qualities, feeling joy with them opens up our ability to feel joy with others' good qualities. Using Sympathetic Joy in our normal life is very helpful so that jealousy will not arise so often.
As well, if we have jealousy and we find it difficult to let it go, we can go in two directions. One is, after we've come to the stage of having Compassion for ourselves, we can try to reflect on some of our good qualities. However if we don't feel that we have many good qualities then it may not help. Second is that we could use a reflection on how much pain and Dukkha arises in this world coming from jealousy. So we open to the universality of Dukkha at that time, which is very helpful so that we can see the pain and suffering arising from jealousy. But if you want to prevent this kind of quality from arising in your life, it is quite important to develop more confidence.
In fact, in the scriptures Alavaka asked the Buddha "What is the best wealth to a person in this world?" The Buddha replied, "Confidence is the best wealth to a person." Without confidence we don't feel we have any power or strength. The Five Spiritual Powers the Buddha taught are Confidence, Mindfulness, Energy, Concentration and Wisdom. Confidence is a spiritual power. Without it we don't do very much because we don't feel we have the power, not only in our spiritual life, but also in normal day-to-day life, when we're interacting with other living beings. When we have more of a healthy sense of self-worth, there won't be so many negative comparisons. We will even tend to forget about ourselves a lot.
Whereas when we have a lot of negative self-worth, we tend to compare ourselves with others. When we compare ourselves with others, they are always going to be people higher than us and lower than us in the qualities that we seek to be. That's the nature of human existence. So if we see a person with lesser qualities, in order to stop the feeling of conceit arising, it is helpful to have Compassion for their human imperfections. In order to stop jealousy and the sense of negative comparisons and unworthiness arising when we see other people's beneficial qualities, it is important to learn the ability of having Sympathetic Joy. And then our joy increases in our lives.