Musashi's Dokkodo (The Way of Walking Alone)

Precept 7:
Never be jealous
“O’ beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed
monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” — William
Shakespeare
Monk:
Being born with great eyesight is a blessing. I have never known the
gift of good eyesight and many of you as fellow eyeglass or contacts
wearers understand how tough that can be. That fact, being born
with less than perfect, uncorrected eyesight precludes many of us
from many things in life, among them the possibility of ever flying on
a military jet for a living let alone commanding that aircraft. Getting at
least 1,000 hours pilot-in-command time in a jet aircraft is a
necessary prerequisite if you wish to become an astronaut in the
United States. If you are over six-foot and one-quarter inches tall,
you can’t be an astronaut either. That’s too tall. A college degree in
the hard sciences is also necessary along with an advanced degree.
Further, you need to pass a very demanding physical fitness test. As
you can see, if you want to be an astronaut you need to win the
genetic lottery first, then combine that fortune with a discipline of
mind and body. It’s an elite profession by every definition of the
word.
Having been handed a pass on the genetic lottery, and through
diligent hard work achieving all the necessary education and training,
Lisa Nowak became an astronaut. What a high achievement,
earning one of the rarest of high profile jobs on the face of the Earth,
and yet she tossed it all away. Over jealousy. In 2007, astronaut Lisa

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Nowak found herself under arrest and charged with a series of
crimes including attempted kidnapping, burglary, and battery.
You see, by all accounts Nowak was jealous of another woman who
was in a relationship with the man of her affections. Nowak drove
from Houston, Texas to Orlando, Florida to get revenge. Inside her
car investigators found a trench coat, wig, BB gun, garbage bags,
pepper spray, and a knife. Even though Nowak used the pepper
spray on the other woman, her intended victim managed to escape
the attack, saving herself from Nowak’s clutches. Who knows what
else was in store for her, but it doesn’t take much imagination to
believe that it would not be a good thing. After all, Nowak was so
single-minded in her pursuit that she wore adult diapers during her
commute so as not to have to add any time to her already long drive
by taking restroom break.
The sixth-century Orthodox monk Isaac of Syria once said,
“Passions are like dogs accustomed to lick the blood in the butcher’s
shop. When they are not given their usual meal they stand and
bark.” The barking passion of jealousy destroyed Nowak’s life
despite the fact that she ultimately managed to escape a legal
conviction and was allowed to retire from the Navy. Nevertheless, a
panel of three US Navy admirals recommended that Nowak be
discharged, her rank reduced from Captain to Commander, and that
her separation from service be classified as “other than honorable.”
This not only affected her reputation, but no doubt also impacted her
retirement pay and benefits too.
The emotion of jealousy will lie to you, it will whisper in your ear that
what you are doing makes sense; it feels good, it is just and correct,
and yet jealously is always deceitful. It has to be, because without
the lie jealously cannot not exist. Jealousy tears you off of your path
and places your feet firmly on a crooked, distorted journey. This
distortion does not come from the fact that the other path is bad
necessarily, or even that it is poorly constructed, but rather it comes
from the fact that it is not your path. You are trying to walk in
somebody else’s shoes and not in a good way. Their shoes do not fit

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you. Sadly your desire is so high that you will suffer pain to make the
path work for you, or perhaps you will attempt to change the other’s
path through force like Nowak chose to do. Either way there is no
good resolution to the situation.
Jealousy is destructive and like a virus it either maims or kills its
host. Musashi, I believe, recognized this essential fact of jealousy
and by never engaging in it assured that it cannot exist. It is like a
reflection in a mirror; you must stand in front of the mirror in order to
see your reflection. If you do not stand in front of the mirror, your
reflection does not exist. If you do not engage in jealousy it does not
exist.
In three short words, Musashi saves us from one of the greatest
failures of the human existence. Never be jealous. Wise words aptly
said.