There are two kinds of learning. Learning external things is to study and train in school or university to become a secretary, a cook, a manager of a company and so forth. There are many such external things that you can learn to do well. Then there is learning internal things, which involves the mind. If you relate doing your job to the inner kind of learning, to Dharma, to the lam-rim, it will make your actions positive and virtuous, and a cause of happiness.
Your mind is what makes your actions of body, speech and mind become Dharma or virtue, and a cause of happiness. A healthy mind makes your actions healthy, which brings the result of happiness and a healthy life. A healthy life means not only this life but all the lives until you stop reincarnating in the six suffering realms and experiencing all the unbelievable sufferings again and again, until you cease the causes of samsara, delusions and karma. In short, a healthy mind is an ethical mind, which leads to an ethical life.
The world suffers because people don’t live an ethical life and don’t have a healthy mind. All the global problems, country problems, society problems, family problems and individual problems come from an unhealthy mind. They are caused by a non-virtuous, unethical, disturbed and obscured mind.
External things—how to cook, clean, be a manager and so forth—can be learnt at school, but without an inner education, without knowing Dharma and without practicing Dharma, none of them becomes a cause of happiness. That is the reality: nothing at all becomes a cause of happiness. No matter how much money you spend on university, all you learn is the way to do things externally. But the way to do things internally is more important because even if you learn the best way to do things externally, your actions don’t become a cause of happiness for yourself now, nor from life to life.
Learning how to do things externally is meant to make you happy in this life. It is about making money and from that money getting happiness. But without learning the way to do things internally, your actions of body, speech and mind never become Dharma, a cause of happiness. They only become non-virtue, at least generally speaking. Even if you live for a hundred years, it will always be like that. Even if you live for a thousand years, it will always be like that. Even if you live for a million years, it will always be like that.
Therefore, the way to do things is the inner way, which is not about looking for and being attached to the happiness of this life. It is about having a happy mind, free from the hundreds and thousands of problems that come from attachment to this life. Then you have inner happiness. With a mind free from attachment to this life, you look for the happiness of not just one future life but of all future lives.
For however long it takes you to meet Dharma, to actualize the path and to remove delusions and karma, until then, you will have to be reborn in the six realms, one after the other, and suffer there. Thinking of that motivates you to seek the happiness of future lives. If you have that motivation, everything becomes Dharma. With this most important inner learning, all the things you learn in school or university, whether cleaning, cooking or managing a company, become Dharma: a cause of happiness in future lives for you. That is the graduated path of a lower capable being and the very first Dharma.
People who don’t know what Dharma is think that it means going to a temple and praying or meditating with closed eyes. If you only sit with closed eyes or just read prayers, it is difficult to see how practicing Dharma stops the problems of this life. But if you know exactly what real Dharma is, you will know that it stops the problems caused by attachment, anger and ignorance.
Then, by knowing the shortcomings of samsara, you understand that even samsaric pleasures are only suffering in nature, and therefore, the pleasure can’t continue and can’t increase. That pleasure is not like Dharma happiness, which can continue and increase and is completed when enlightenment is achieved. Since the causes of samsaric pleasures are delusions and karma, they cannot continue and increase. When you realize how samsara is only suffering in nature, you look for liberation from it, for nirvana. Then that becomes your motivation for living your life, for doing everything—cleaning, cooking and being a manager.
That is the second Dharma, which is higher, better and purer than the first Dharma. This second motivation brings more happiness than the first one; it brings ultimate happiness forever. The first Dharma does not bring ultimate happiness; it brings samsaric happiness, which is the suffering of change. This is the second way to do things internally. With that mind, all the actions of your body, speech and mind become causes of liberation. Everything you do becomes a cause of ultimate happiness.
The third way to do things internally is to renounce the self-cherishing thought, which opens the door for problems, obstacles, misfortune and bad energy. Leaving behind the self-cherishing thought, you cherish others. The goal to achieve now is the total elimination of all obscurations and the completion of all realizations for the sake of sentient beings—the numberless hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, human beings, asuras and suras. Even though they didn’t ask you to help them, you feel responsible for them because you cherish them. This wish to help everyone—all the numberless sentient beings without anyone being left out—by freeing them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bringing them to the peerless happiness of full enlightenment is the most amazing attitude. Then to be able to do that, you yourself have to achieve enlightenment.
This is the third way to do things internally. With that motivation, all your actions of body, speech and mind—whether cooking, cleaning or being a manager of a company, and even breathing in and out, talking or taking one step—are done for every sentient being. Everything you do is for everybody’s happiness, for everybody’s enlightenment. Then, even if you recite just one OM MANI PADME HUM, you collect skies of merit. And if you have bodhicitta, you collect more than skies of merit.
Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo’s Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand mentions that even without the realization of bodhicitta, offering one light while thinking to enlighten sentient beings becomes like offering one hundred thousand lights. And making charity of one dollar or one rupee to a beggar becomes like giving them one hundred thousand dollars or rupees. That is how much merit you get.
That is what is mentioned there, but if you do everything with bodhicitta, thinking to achieve enlightenment to free every single one of the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment, then by making even one step on your way somewhere, drinking even one sip of tea or water or eating even one spoonful of food, you collect merit as limitless as the sky.
Can you imagine what this third way of doing things internally is like? It brings the happiest life. If you meet Dharma, if you know Dharma, if you practice Dharma, you will have the happiest life. You can solve all your problems. You can become free from samsara. You can create the causes of happiness, practice the path, generate bodhicitta and achieve enlightenment. Can you imagine it? In this world, there are many people who are very intelligent and very wealthy but don’t have faith and don’t have the karma to meet, learn and practice Dharma. Most people don’t have that karma, so there are very few real Buddhists. Even among the people who meet and learn Dharma, those who practice it are very few. It is a question of luck. It is unbelievably rare.
With this third way of doing things, of living an inner life, every single action you do, such as eating, walking or talking, becomes a cause of happiness for numberless sentient beings. It also becomes a cause for you to achieve enlightenment so that you can free them from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to enlightenment. That is most unbelievable.
Many people in the West think it is necessary to go to school to learn how to do things. While that is true regarding what to do externally to have a profession, in school you are not taught how to live your life so that it doesn’t become a cause of suffering but becomes a cause of happiness. Even if someone were to speak about it there, the school committee might not accept it and might dismiss that person. This is because you cannot teach whatever you like in a school; you have to follow the rules. But even if the way to do things internally cannot be taught precisely in school, you, as a parent, especially at home, should guide your children. This means that you have to guide yourself first, as only by becoming an example can you teach your children. That would be the best.
However, even if you can’t teach them precisely the way to live their life and do things internally, you can teach them to think of others first. If they can think of others’ happiness first, then they will be happy. You should always emphasize the need to serve others and to have compassion and loving kindness for others. You should practice compassion and teach it to your children. If you are an example to your children and can inspire them in that way, they will grow up well and will have a healthy life. Then, even if they can’t be of benefit to others, due to having a compassionate mind, they won’t harm them.
When teaching your children about the way to do things internally, you don’t even have to bring up the question of Dharma practice, especially if they are not interested in Dharma. Instead, you should emphasize that the way to live their lives is by benefiting others, both human beings and animals, as much as possible. You should practice this yourself; that is the best way of teaching and guiding your children. In this way, whatever your children decide to learn, it will be to benefit sentient beings and to serve the world. That is the best education. Then, even if they can’t think of all sentient beings, at least they will want to serve other people in this world in the best way possible.
By teaching them this, your children will be inspired and will develop the courage to lead a meaningful life. Otherwise, even if just for a second they don’t see the purpose of life, they might think that by committing suicide, the suffering will end.
As a parent, if you guide your children like this, they will always benefit other sentient beings, whether friends, enemies or strangers, with their body, speech and mind. They will cherish them as much as possible with compassion and loving kindness. Then, even if they don’t want others to care for and help them, because their actions benefit others, that will be the result, without choice, of the karma they have created. Even if they don’t like it, others will naturally serve them, take care of them and help them. This will happen even if they are not looking for it and are acting purely for others.
Then your children will be of benefit to the world or at least they won’t be harmful to the world. Otherwise, if you don’t give them an inner education about how to live their lives, even though you make so much effort and dedicate your life to your children, in the future, it will not be of much use. On the other hand, by cherishing others, even animals and insects, with the motivation of doing everything purely for others, you and your children will have the happiest life. Not only will you both create good karma, the result of which is happiness, but because karma expands, you will experience the result of even one good karma for a hundred lifetimes, for five hundred lifetimes, for a thousand lifetimes. You need to understand that that is what happens as a result of cherishing others.
The commentary to Aryadeva’s Four Hundred Stanzas says that if you cheat one sentient being one time, you will be cheated by sentient beings for a thousand lifetimes. Like that, whether you expect it or not, the result of the karma of helping one sentient being one time is that you will receive happiness for a thousand lifetimes. If you and your children benefit others every day, all your wishes will be fulfilled. Whatever happiness you wish for will come in this life and even more happiness will come in future lives. If you wish for something, it will come easily from life to life. This also means that Dharma realizations will come and you will achieve enlightenment quickly.
Enlightenment, the greatest success, also happens due to cherishing others. That is real success. People think success is having money but the real success is having a good heart cherishing others. It is having loving kindness for human beings and animals. We should always remember that that is the cause of success. That is the most important education in the world. If everybody in the world had a good heart and loving kindness, they would stop harming others and there would be peace and happiness. Harming others harms yourself because it becomes the cause to receive harm in the future. So success is not about having money; success is about having a good heart. That is the main education you should give your children.
