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Published: April 14th 2014
I'm sure you've been there - I know I have.
It's 10 PM, and you're about ready for bed. But first - let me check Facebook. Just for a few minutes, to check my updates. 2 hours later, you finally shut off your computer, somehow dissatisfied with your day - with your life.
My personal experience is backed up by a recent study that found that after spending time on Facebook, people are more depressed and report less life satisfaction than before going on the social networking site. The study concluded that jealousy was the cause of this trend. It's easy to see why. When people post photos or updates about their life, they put their best foot forward. They tell the world about their latest promotion, or post photos of their happy partners and families or of the vacation to some beautiful exotic place you could never hope to afford. They don't mention if they actually hate their job, or the latest fight with their girlfriend, or the other 50 weeks of the year behind a desk. The experiences our friends put online are often the ones we would like to have - but usually aren't. And when we finally log off, our life now seems somehow less than it was before we willingly watched and commented on the lives we're not living.
The funny thing is - I even get jealous of the lives I don't want to live. I see online that a friend from college has landed a 'real job' - which I define as a full-time, non-seasonal job that pays a living wage. It's also something that I haven't had since graduating from college 3 1/2 years ago. So when I see that someone who was a sophomore when I graduated already has a real job, I feel somehow inferior. Which is ridiculous. Because to this date, I have never in my life applied for or attempted to get a 'real job.' When I graduated, I spent the summer as a camp counselor, 2 years as an AmeriCorps service member, and a year in Oregon teaching bicycle safety in Portland public schools. Which is exactly what I wanted to do with my life so far. Meanwhile, I saved up enough money working extra jobs as a wildland firefighter and working a fun retail job at REI to pay off all my student loans and save up enough money to travel to India for 6 months. And when I get back to the states in May, I have a wedding to plan with the most beautiful woman in the world.
So why does Facebook still make me depressed?
I don't know why I still get jealous when I am completely content with my life, but after studying Buddhism, I know how to overcome jealousy.
According to Buddha, life is suffering - or dissatisfaction might be a better translation. The only way to overcome this suffering, or dissatisfaction, is to remove your mental afflictions, such as anger, jealousy, and attachment. Buddhists believe that the purpose of life is to be happy - and that the key to happiness lies solely in the mind. With the right attitude, the poorest man in the world can live a happier life than the richest. Through study and meditation, anyone can improve their attitude, and live a happier life.
There are three main aspects of this path - teachings, contemplation, and meditation. As a teacher and a person who constantly questions authority, I have much respect for this way to teach.
Buddha taught that you should accept nothing on face value that anyone else tells you, no matter who he is or how much you respect him - including the Buddha himself. Through contemplation, you can assess the truth behind the teachings, arriving at your own conclusion using your wisdom. To move the teachings you do accept from an intellectual understanding to become part of your everyday life, you must act on the teachings. In Buddhism, this process is done through meditation.
I already mentioned one teaching that really struck me as particularly useful in life. Buddhism holds that the path to true happiness is blocked my many of us by our constant search for fleeting pleasures, and our constant avoidance of dissatisfaction.
These are attachment and aversion.
Attachment does not mean that it is bad to eat ice cream. It means that when we think about eating ice cream, we build up an unrealistic idea in our heads of what that ice cream means to us. When we are attached to ice cream - or to coffee, or to a nice warm bed, or to someone we love, or to what others think of us - we are not happy unless we get the ice cream when we want it, and it is as good as we expect. Often it isn't - especially after we've built up the idea in our head.
Aversion is similar, but opposite (same same, but different...). It is not wrong to avoid something that is bad for us, such as a spider that might bite us. The problem is when we build up the idea of the spider in our heads so that our fear of the spider is completely out of proportion to its danger. The suffering from our fear, from our aversion, is worse than anything the spider - or a spoiled meal, or a night of discomfort, or rejection, or a bad reputation - could ever cause.
One of Buddhist practitioners' main goals is to move past the preoccupation with attachment and aversion. Following the path Buddha described, they first learn about this subject, then contemplate it to see if the teachings ring true for them, then, if so, they meditate.
There are actually two types of meditation. The first is the stereotypical meditation, and the only type I had heard of before I took a 10-day silent Introduction to Buddhism course. In this type of meditation, you sit silently and clear your mind, trying to think of nothing but a single object, often the breath. The object of this meditation is to improve your focus and attention, which increases the effectiveness of the next type of meditation.
This meditation involves reflection. Rather than focusing on a single object, you meditate and reflect on a teaching. Meditating on the teaching allows you to move beyond an intellectual understanding of the topic. This may involve practicing some quality you wish to develop, such as compassion, or trying to realize the true nature of reality (a complex and rather convoluted theory that states in part that everything and everyone is interdependent).
Which brings us back to Facebook. And jealousy.
For if there is one thing Tibetan Buddhists love, it's - well, it's the Dalai Lama. But if there is a second thing Buddhists love, it's compassion. By doing the above meditation and focusing on developing compassion, you can overcome your jealousy, or any other negative feelings you have for others.
During several guided meditations, I meditated on compassion, and I found it actually made a difference. I meditated on people in my life I have unresolved issues with, to try to come to forgiveness. And I made progress. During the process, I even remembered old grudges I didn't even realize I still held. In my meditation, I forgave them. The next morning, when I thought about them, no (or at least less) bitterness or familiar rush of blood flooded my chest at the injustices I suffered because of them.
What I love about this type of meditation is that it can apply to developing any personal quality you wish to cultivate. You can increase your compassion, your forgiveness, your wisdom, or your patience. You can decrease your attachment, your aversion, your anger, or your fear of death. Through meditating on the inevitability of death, you can make the most (or at least more) of every moment. You may even reach that elusive understanding of the "true nature of reality."
So the next time you're on Facebook, clicking "like" on all the cool experiences you wish you could be having, and you feel those familiar pangs of jealousy cropping up - try meditation. Basically all it is is thinking. Think about - or meditate, if you will - how you wish nothing but the best for that person, that you are glad she is doing well, and you hope she will continue to do well. You can do this while sitting cross-legged and in silence ("traditional"), or while doing any number of activities that keep part of your mind free - commuting, exercising, cooking, brushing your teeth, or trying to fall asleep.
If you're really into it, you can even do the Buddhist meditation I describe below. Happy meditating (and Facebooking)!
This is a meditation to increase compassion.
Begin by thinking of someone you love. Imagine all her suffering - her fears, her anxieties, her longings, her pain - as black smoke that fills her body. With each breath you take in, you draw that black smoke - her suffering - out of her body, and in through your nose, where it settles in your chest. All that suffering, you're willing to bear on her behalf, out of your compassion. With each out-breath you take, imagine a pure white light - pure happiness - exit your nose and enter her nose, filling her with light and happiness.
This stage is typically all I do during this meditation, but you can go a step further. As your chest fills with black smoke, it condenses into a small black stone in your heart. Once your loved one has been filled with white light, and the last black smoke has left her body, as it enters your nose and reaches your chest, the black stone shatters and your body is also filled with pure white light.
Next, repeat this same meditation with someone who you feel indifferent about - someone perhaps you've never met, but have seen in passing. It's a bit more challenging to develop compassion for someone who you don't already love.
Finally, the most challenging of all - someone you dislike or hate, or are having a problem with. Maybe this is a person you want to forgive, or stop being envious of, or someone you perhaps justly dislike but want to have compassion for nonetheless.
The ultimate goal is to extend your compassion to all humans, and eventually all sentient beings, in the world.
To show you the potential of this meditation for increasing your compassion, consider the Dalai Lama. He does this meditation every morning (his daily meditation routine begins at 3:00 AM). He has great compassion for everyone - including the Chinese soldiers and officials who have driven him, and a million other Tibetans, into exile from his homeland, and continue to rape, murder and pillage his country to this day.
Now that's compassion.
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luciana
non-member comment
wisdom words
Excelent thoughts to start the week!!!