How to STOP Jealousy & Comparison | A Monk's Approach

So today I wanted to talk about a topic that affects so many people and this topic is about how not to compare ourselves to others and also how not to feel this feeling of

jealousy

and normally when we are in a group because we have to interact. with other people we are not alone it makes sense because we are trying to find our place, we are trying to see how we are doing, then we look outside to compare ourselves, judge ourselves and then use it as a measure and that is just basic because we are dealing with other people and We interact with other people now with the way our culture is now with the way our society is now with the advancement and invention of technology that has just exploded, you can see now with the The mere fact of the amount of social media, the amount of news, the amount of information that we have available, we are just bombarded from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep, many people struggle with this, so if it's not you, it's okay, but most people right now just have this difficulty because everything is so accessible, we have our phones in our hands, we always look at it and it's in front of us all the time, also with messages. what we receive and the expectations of society, then everything becomes complicated, so it makes sense why we have a tendency to feel jealous, compare ourselves to others and then pass judgment on our own lives, so in this video I wanted to take the time to normalize that.

This is something that most people deal with or most people deal with, but the other part is that we can look at it in a different way where, instead of using this

comparison

, we use this

jealousy

that They harm you and make you feel bad. yourself and then you go into a negative cycle, why don't we look at this from a different perspective using wisdom and then using techniques where you learn and study and then you can benefit and use this as a springboard to transform yourself. so in no particular order these are five tips that I wanted to share with you to help you not compare yourself to others and also feel jealous seeing the good in others and then integrating it it is very common that when we look at others we then start to compare and we see that they are doing so well, that they are so successful, that they are so beautiful, that they fill in the blank and then when they are so beautiful, when they are so successful, when they are so strong, then when we are not at that level then we tend to make a negative judgment about ourselves then we feel bad then we can get into a negative cycle we can feel insecure we can feel inadequate not enough then this is again very common so instead of continuing that path repeat the pattern and it doesn't help you because you just get into this negative loop cycle, we reflect on it and again we feel bad and then we continue the process and it doesn't benefit us, so in a way we can take a look at this, let's do something different like I said before, this is normal, so now let's train differently so one tool that I wanted to share with you is something that I did when I was first in the monastery and I knew about it when I entered.

Here, being in the west, being in Malibu and California is very normal and it is very common to feel that pressure of comparing yourself to others but I knew that when I entered the monastery I wanted to look at myself in a different way, I wanted to fix it. This problem because I knew and you know that comparing yourself to others is just not healthy so I decided to let myself train when I started the ordination program we had men that came from all over the world so instead of comparing myself to others I felt inappropriate.

I decided to let myself take out a journal and in this journal, since we had 30 men in the program that were being ordained, I decided to just take a regular journal like this and on each page I gave each person two pages that I just wrote their name on. I did it and dedicated those two pages to them instead of my mind naturally going to compare, judge and criticize them. I wanted to learn from them. I made it a habit and an exercise for that, for the rest of the program I would just observe others. people attentively and then I would just bring out the good things, so I could see my brother

monk

, who is from Russia, and then I would realize wow, look at his habits, he is always on time, so I would write it down, wow, when this person eats. they are very conscious they are very quiet they are very polite when this person sings they speak very clearly they are very confident and project their voice well so again this was an exercise that took many days and for each person I simply trained myself to select all the good qualities that I saw on them and then at the end of the program, instead of looking to compare, looking to judge other people, so I kept my eyes on myself, I kept my eyes on my own training. and then the second part of this is that you use all these good qualities and try to integrate them into yourself.

Now you have a map. Now you have a base of things that you may be missing and that you want to improve, and these are good ones. qualities then with this golden information with this nugget that you just found like this treasure use it for your own benefit and slowly integrate it into your daily life so again this part only has two steps: the first is to start looking for the good to see in other people write it and the second part is then integrate it and in English it is rejoice in your merits and the merits are actually just the good deeds that we do in the monastery when I first came to Thailand this is a Thai word where when you do good deeds everyone encourages you and congratulates you and points that out to you and the word they use to rejoice in your merits is anumotanabun, so every time someone does a good deed then they say anumotenabun and for me when I first came to order and enter this culture every time someone did something good and again people were really rejoicing about it and they kept saying and for me I didn't even know how to say this word so it was awkward I wasn't.

I trained in this concept or practiced this concept before coming here, so it felt a little strange and people kept repeating it over and over every time I did something good or every time someone else did something good, it's just anumotenabun, you made a good anumotena and I like it. I said at first that it was okay, this is very strange, we really have to do it every time, but now that I have been in the monastery for some time, I can see that this is a way we use to train. ourselves, so every time someone does good we recognize what they did, that it was a good action, that it was good behavior and then we want to recognize that and share the goodness with them so that we train ourselves each time to point it out and highlight it and educate people again instead of focusing on their flaws instead of focusing on areas that we disagree with, let's start with something that is positive and the positive thing that we can all agree on is that when people do the well let's encourage that and let's support it and together we can rejoice and we can share this good energy that will be beneficial for us and for the other party, so how does this advice apply to you and really if you are somewhere else in the world and you are not used to to the term anumotenabun, you don't have to use it in your office because people will look at you strangely, but take your time and make an effort to share and rejoice in the good works that other people are doing. so this is another way of training yourself to start seeing the good and focus it on a positive aspect, spread loving kindness, so when we have a

comparison

, when we have darkness of mind, we have jealousy, that kind of thing in the Buddhist context.

Call it kilesa or impurities and we have this darkness of mind, so for us, how can we counteract this? It is truly a practice of sharing loving kindness. Sometimes we hold grudges. Sometimes we keep heaviness in our hearts. This is the antidote that will help you. What we do in the monastery is actually practicing meditation, of course you know from other videos that our training system involves developing morally, developing in meditation and then also developing in wisdom and then using that wisdom to change our life. go ahead, so once we are done with the meditation, your mind should be clearer, brighter, brighter, more open and hopefully very calm and in this stillness for us we like to start by sharing kindness, spreading Loving kindness to yourself first and why do we start with? ourselves because it's really the easiest it's hard to share good will and good energy with people we don't like our enemies people who are far away so we always start with ourselves first because it's the easiest to spread loving kindness is to just cover yourself yourself with this good feeling, so if you don't know what that means, you can imagine like a bright light or a bubble that surrounds you, that feels loving, compassionate and that illuminates your mind, that everything negative, everything bad, will be deleted. cover every ounce of your body, every pore of your body and then let it sit here and then when you can do it, expand this good loving energy to cover the people in the room with you, let's start there and then move this energy, this bubble to even get there.

Expand this pure energy that you cultivated in your meditation and allow it to cover the entire building, cover the entire city, cover the entire city, cover the entire world and then continue to extend it to infinity and simply allow it to continue to grow and in doing this act , you're training yourself to soften your mind, soften your heart and add that compassion for yourself and for other people, and it takes training because there are people we don't agree with, you know people we don't agree with. Disdain, but still, people are different from you, people have different views, different lifestyles, can you still share loving kindness with them?

And that's why it's a workout and when you do it for the first time, you'll notice that, in theory, I understand it. I should share loving kindness with people who are my enemies with people I disagree with, but the practice of doing so is different from just theory and that is why we should put it into practice every day and keep spreading it. and with that daily practice it becomes more natural that you automatically just want to cover everyone in this world with loving kindness, but start with the practice, talk to them and ask them what that's like when we enter a space where we are jealous of someone. otherwise we feel inferior, we feel like we are less than that to me again, it's not useful, it's not useful, so let me go to the opposite extreme instead, then let me go talk to you and let me understand those big qualities you have.

I have to admire how you developed that, how you got that and for me what was really helpful in the monastery was that after writing my diary I took the time to understand each person, the person who had the incredible habit of never being late and Not only were they never late, but they were early, you know, I had a brother

monk

who always came very early, prepared all the cushions for the rest of the monks, turned on the fans, turned on the lights, swept, mopped and prepared all the meditation room every day for a full program and for me I want to learn and I want to know how you did it, so instead of comparing or being jealous of its quality, I said, "You know what," let me sit down. with them and of all the good qualities that I listed with each person in this journal and because maybe I lack them or maybe I want them, so I would sit with them and get the knowledge now p how did you develop those? characteristics How are you not lazy?

What technique do you use? Is there any advice you can give me because I love this quality that you have and in doing so, instead of focusing on the negative parts like I said, I then focus on the positive parts. part and I can learn directly from that person because that was his strong point and this was something that if you can do frequently, little by little you start to acquire the knowledge and then you start to integrate it into yourself and the characteristics that you had. I'm so jealous of it that he becomes a part of you.

Imagine doing this on a daily basis and really this is not a um, am I secretly plotting or not, I just really want to be a better person to develop my abilities to integrate what you have and then I would continue this process from one brother monk to another and the next. What you knew was that they were very kind and handed me their wisdom on a silver platter the things I wanted to improve The things I was struggling with were the people who were doing amazing and they directly gave me advice that I did and didn't even consider, but this worked for me.

This is a technique I use. This is a secret I found. that you can apply to yourself and right there it was something that was beneficial for me, so you can try it for yourself and close the gap because when we judge other people or compare then we feel a distance, but it bridges that distance. straight to the source if you can and talk to them and learn from them and what I find is that most people want to sharethe things that have worked for them and it is actually an honor and a privilege and this small act can change your life. drastically, so try it, everyone experiences suffering.

A key assumption that people can make when comparing themselves to others when they feel jealous is that other people are happy and are not experiencing any suffering, but that is simply inaccurate and they use teaching. of the Buddha and the Buddha taught that the fact that we are born, that we are born, we have as we age we have illness and we have death, so the mere fact of being alive we will experience suffering and many times we can look at life and other people from a lens in which Well, my life is not where I want it to be and it looks like everyone else. is very happy and they do not experience any suffering we have an image of what celebrities look like what athletes look like people who are successful uh the different variety of images available to us it may appear that they do not experience any suffering and that is simply not a fact and the teaching we receive is that you can be the most successful and richest person in the world, but you will still experience the suffering of a rich person, you can be the poorest person in the world and you will experience a different situation. type of suffering, people look at other people's relationships and wow I'm single but someone is in a relationship and they should be happy, yes sure there is an element to that but at the same time there are challenges and struggles to have a couple. have a relationship, but we can go in black and white where we think wow, it's just romantic, the whole honeymoon is roses and butterflies.

You receive love notes every morning, so if you're in a relationship, describe it. This is the case where it's just roses and butterflies. rainbows and poetry every day and that's not how it is, so if you're single it has its benefits, there are parts where it's a challenge anyway, if you're in a part of the world they have challenges you know? when i was in malibu there are challenges of malibu and there are benefits and when you are in this country i am in thailand there are great things and there are also challenges but being a mother even of a newborn baby is the happiest precious time holding your child in your arms, so yes, it is a very sacred moment, but even so this new mom still experiences some kind of suffering. so I wish that they also have some kind of suffering and how is this useful for you?

And just know that whatever ideal of the type of person that you're idolizing or looking up to, just know that there's a common thread, there's a common ground that we can relate to. and the way things look doesn't necessarily match the eyes and we can get into the habit of going on a whole spectrum. Wow, how happy, but again, you just have to know the mere fact of being alive regardless of your status, regardless of your race, regardless of your wealth. Anything that you may have at the top of you will still have some kind of suffering, so knowing this gives you some kind of comfort in knowing that it's normal and then the last part is to continue to cultivate your own serenity, your own peace. become your own refuge and look outside, sure, okay, you can see it, it brings up a lot of things, but ultimately, let's do our own work because that's important and that's what's real and it allows your mind to be brilliant, keep training yourself and train your perception to see things as they are, this is Buddhism, seeing yourself as you are, seeing other people as they are and seeing your situation as it is, and this type of dhamma for me is very useful and can give you peace of mind, so there you have it.

These are the five tips I can offer you so that you do not compare yourself and do not judge yourself with others. The good thing about this part for me I feel like if you can look at things very neutrally is that it gets exposed when we look at other people. It exposes maybe good qualities that maybe we lack, maybe we want some and that's great, so use it, learn it and try to integrate it into your life so you can be better, but I find that when we engage in this comparison, jealousy . What simply does not benefit us puts us in a negative cycle and leads nowhere, so instead, do the opposite, learn from the situation, learn from other people, take their goodness and then apply it to yourself. , teach yourself to develop a system and a model where when you interact with the outside world, this is how I train my mind and see the situation from a positive perspective, otherwise, as I said, it does not benefit you, so that develop a system in which it does benefit you and keep constantly training yourself so that we can look at the world where we always feel less than inadequate not enough always striving and longing for me I just take it lightly I take it easy and I feel like a child when I look at the world and I'm just playful where I just look at things or I try to look at things with my eyes open like a learning like a playground where wow that's cool these are the qualities these are the virtues these are the characteristics I want the last piece that I would add is to pay attention to what you are jealous of and for us in the monastery what we look at is that we try to integrate virtues good virtues good morality good habits good qualities and perfections that we see in other people like patients like the equanimity and the kindness and the resilience of a person who has courage, a person who is honest, those are the things that we value and we look for and we study, we study in other people and then we try to integrate them into ourselves, so I know that this is a lot of information.

I hope it makes sense, I hope it's useful, but I just wanted to post this so again I'm going to finish it, but as always from Thailand, I'm just sending you all my blessings, all my regards and please stay safe, train with gentleness. I walk and I hope you are all well, so sato and anumota