The antidote for jealousy is rejoicing, which of course you do not want to do when you are jealous. Sometimes the pain of jealousy forces us to do that. Jealousy is extremely painful. You feel totally trapped by it. And it is such a disgusting state of mind. For anger, you can go to a friend and say, “Oh, I want to vent because they did this and this and this.” You cannot go to a friend and say, “I’m so jealous,” because it is such a disgusting mind and who wants to even admit having it? If we cannot admit having it, that makes it very difficult to oppose it. We must be able to admit it, not only to ourselves but to others. It is not very wise to tell the person we are jealous of them. That does not work very well as you are projecting things on them, and as soon as you tell them you are jealous of them, they will start projecting stuff on you, and then everything gets really messed up. It is better not to do that, but to try and deal with it internally.

One thing that works very well with jealousy is to imagine, “I’m really jealous of somebody because they get to do (whatever), or they have certain qualities.” Ask yourself, “What would happen if I were that person? What would my life be like if I were that person? I’m so jealous of them, I want to be them, I want to have those opportunities, so okay, I’m going to switch and be them.” What is your life going to be like having all of the conditions that that person has?

Whatever it is that we are jealous of, it always comes with some drawbacks. If we really see: “If I change positions with that person, do I want to have his kind of personality? Do I want to follow through on all the opportunities that I get now when I’m them?” Really switch places and see, “Do I want to be that person?” The answer is usually, “No. I have enough problems already, I don’t need their problems.” Because whoever we are jealous of, they have their own set of problems. They have their own suffering. Sometimes their suffering and their problems come from the qualities and opportunities that we are jealous of. If you really imagine switching places with them, then you say, “Do I want to deal with all the disadvantages too?”

You should look at the whole situation when you are jealous of somebody and see if you really want the whole thing or not. Because usually when we are jealous, we are exaggerating the good qualities of whatever we are jealous of: “Oh, that only has good qualities if only I could do that.” So be very careful of what you want, be careful of what you are jealous of, because you might get it. Then you really have to deal with what it is like.

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