Is there an "Evil Eye" in Avot?

Writing in the Jewish Press, Rabbi Moshe Meir Weiss asks, "How Can You Protect Yourself From an Ayin Hara?"  He discusses a mishnah from the second chapter of Avot (2:16) in which Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya teaches:

"Three things can cause a person’s expulsion from this world: an evil eye, evil desires (yetzer hara), and hatred of others (sinas habriyos).”

Rabbi Weiss comments:

So not only is ayin hara real, it can cause a person’s early demise. Even more astounding is that Rabbi Yehoshua lists it first. Evidently, he considers ayin hara to be more deadly than either the yetzer hara or sinas habriyos!

Part of the manuscript of the Machzor Vitry
held by the British Museum, London

This may not be so and there is good reason to suggest that Pirkei Avot does not endorse the popular notion of an "Evil Eye" that one person may cast on another in order to damage him or her.

First, not everyone agrees that this mishnah even mentions ayin hara.  The ancient and authoritative Machzor Vitry has the similar-sounding but quite different ayin ra'ah, which essentially is a meanness of spirit and a lack of magnanimity towards others.

Why should Rabbi Yehoshua be taken to say "ayin ra'ah" rather than "ayin hara"?  First and foremost, the term "ayin hara" is not used elsewhere in Avot. What's more (though I stand to be corrected on this), I don't think that ayin hara appears anywhere else in the whole of the Mishnah.

Secondly, Ayin ra'ah does appear elsewhere in Avot. This term is used by Rabbi Yehoshua's friend and sparring-partner Rabbi Eliezer in the same chapter of Avot and also in the fifth perek, when discussing four different types of donor (or non-donor) to charity.