Hey lit. I was pondering about myself and my feelings and I've

>>9713988
Read the bible.

>>9714001
Would you recommend a specific passage? Cain and Abel, Joseph and his Brothers?

I've read it a long time ago on Church studies but I never really felt like I was getting anything out from it, you know?

>>9713988
Meditate and learn how to discipline your mind. To someone that knows how to meditate envy is just that: envy. To someone who is competent in meditation envy will arise only if he desires so. Also practicing meditation is perfectly compatible with most religions (in all the degrees of fundamentalism) and atheism, it's a structural change rather than a change of values and beliefs. it is ultimately a refinement of the control one has over his own mind and body, rooted entirely on phisiological mechanisms, as if men were just meant to sit down and meditate every once in a while.

>>9714005
Just read it as any book, the goal here is to understand the lessons on selflessness, not analyze the prose.

>>9713988
turn it into fury.

>>9714026
based faulkner poster

>>9714013
Are there good books on (christian) meditation?

>>9713988
You dont need to go on some grand mystical and religious journey, just use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Its simple and effective and doesnt require incredible leaps of faith and credulity

https://www.getselfhelp.co.uk//step1.htm

>>9714349
>https://www.getselfhelp.co.uk//step1.htm

snake oil

>>9713988
you're lucky it's just invidia. it's all acedia here, brobot. i can't muster the will to be envious, let alone be great myself. hohoho
shut up and quit whinin.

>>9713988

Stop feeling entitled to things you have not worked for.

>>9714514
how one would loose this sense of entitlement, though?

>>9714892
Read, learn, and take time to understand the lessons. There is plenty of material on this subject, both sectarian and secular. The important part is taking time to digest the information and act upon it. This isn't a quick fix but something you will need to work on for the rest of your life.

>>9714486
>snake oil

Better suggestion for free CBT resources ?

>>9713988
Plato, get real into Plato then Plotinus. Platonism understood without a theological lens is incredibly freeing and beautiful

>>9714048
Not that anon, but the book that specifically comes to mind is Spiritual Excercises by Ignatius of Loyola. An essential part of it consists in recreating the life of Jesus and fully immerse oneself in the experience imaginatively.
Meditation, divorced from the pseudo-oriental definition the word has acquired during the last two centuries, has it's roots in the word 'contemplation' (which has a philosophically rich and theologically nuanced meaning behind it) – it was a mystical path to the One favored by Plotinus, whom Augustine greatly admired.

>>9713988
For myself, I've never been prone to envy in the sense that I loathe the person and his achievements. Instead, my imagination becomes filled with pride in that I imagine various scenarios of how I can do better, but I still hold respect and admiration for the person in question. I'm good friends with melancholy and despair though, so I never actualize these phantasms. I could say I 'envy' you for your drive and vitality, but that wouldn't be a correct usage of the word.

I don't recommend supressing your desires. If anything, they should be disciplined rationally through philosophy. I say this because whenever I meditate in the pseudo-oriental sense, I try to forcefully uphold that state of mind and it fucks with my natural character – I become emotionally uptight, I loose my wit and social eloquence. It isn't very reliable either, in that the experience itself is fleeting and deceptive. I like the criticism of Chan Buddhism raised by Zhu Xi:

>It’s like the followers of Lu Jiuyuan. When you see them for the first time, they’re always talking about their enlightenment, but then when you look at how they act they’re all sixes and sevens. It seems that what is called profound enlightenment means that there was some insight at the time and a feeling of purity and a passing excitement, but after a while it gradually diminishes. How could one depend on this?

Theology isn't particularly engaging with the world. Great for ascetics and aristocrats, but troublesome for us peasants. Neoconfucianism seems like an exception, but I'm still trying to figure things out, so I'm sorry I can't help you out further.

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200KB, 570x924px

>I've thought about Buddhism but it seems too defeatist for me. The annulment of the self? Well I don't want to stop existing
You're talking about things you don't fully grasp, Anon. In a way, Buddhism is actually the opposite of what you expect. "Emptiness" does not mean things are lack, it means things have no essence of their own save for their relation to other things. The things that bother you are phantoms. Your envy is a phantom, your self-consciousness is a phantom, but they're not phantoms in the sense that they are lies and tricks. There's no self for you to get rid of to begin with, psychically or physically. Contemplation on this will eventually lead you to empathize with everyone's misery and happiness as if were your own, and your own happiness as if it were your own as well and not something to pull you into even more problems. It's in fact the first step to make any perceptible change in the world and that --and not getting to nirvana-- is actually the climax of the Buddha's development.

But even if I told you don't need to change, you would not accept it, because you're not fine with yourself, because somewhere in the argument of your life there's something you believe you need and you think you're going to get by doing all this--some sort of contract, some chain of thought that's lead you into all this.

>>9716579
>I try to forcefully uphold that state of mind and it fucks with my natural character
That you're trying to do it forcefully is the problem. Meditation isn't about being forceful with things, quite the opposite.

>How could one depend on this?
He's correct, and you shouldn't, in the sense you don't "depend" on breathing or eating.

>>9714892
>how one would loose this sense of entitlement, though?

by actually achieving something instead of nothing

>>9713988
Wrong !
The thing that brings you suffering and sorrow it's not envy, it's desire.
You have to be free of all material and spiritual desire in order for you to be "happy".