Deconstructing Jealousy: Understanding Emptiness

Jealousy and other disturbing emotions are symptoms of a larger problem: our basic, fundamental ignorance of how phenomena actually exist. Here, we look more deeply at convention, categories, and how things exist, and how we can use an understanding of it all to overcome jealousy, deal with problems, and get on with life.

Brief Review

We’ve been speaking about emotional problems with the theme of jealousy. We saw that underlying it all is a basic confusion about reality, about how people exist, and about others and ourselves.

One aspect of this confusion is that we think in solid categories where we’re always “winners” or losers,” for instance. We imagine that ourselves and others are solid entities with lines around us and we stick solid “me” into the solid “loser” box, and solid “others” into the solid “winner” box. Then, we freeze it all in the freezer.

With “me” and “you,” however, we’re not talking about general categories like apples or oranges. It’s more confused because “me” and “you” are categories, as everyone thinks of themselves as “me,” and others as “you.” Here I was referring to an individual “me” and an individual “you.”

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