Whatever work you do, there are two things to learn. The first is how to do the actual work, how to do your job, which is what you learn in school and college. This is what most people in the world are educated to do. But that alone is not sufficient. As I have already mentioned, that is nowhere near enough to ensure that your actions serve as the unmistaken cause of happiness. Simply knowing how to do your job never solves your problems completely. Neglecting inner education, which teaches you the attitude with which you should perform your tasks and how to live your life, and focusing on outer education alone brings neither satisfaction nor fulfillment to your heart.
It is of the utmost importance that you understand how to use your mind correctly when you do the things you do. There is no other choice. Why? If, for example, you’re working as a secretary or cooking with Dharma motivation—perhaps for your own happiness beyond this life or the happiness of others—then whatever you do becomes the cause of happiness, a good rebirth in the next life, the body of the happy transmigrator. If, even better, you have bodhicitta motivation, the determination to reach enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, then the secretarial work, cooking or whatever else you do becomes the cause of all sentient beings’ enlightenment.
Thus you can see that internal work—how to use your mind, how to motivate your actions—is far more important than external work, because it is this that determines whether what you do becomes the cause of happiness or the cause of suffering. Instruction in this, how to use your mind correctly, is what’s missing from our schools’ curricula. How to live intelligently is not taught in schools, colleges or universities.
Because you get paid for doing your job, it appears to be the cause of happiness and you believe it to be so. In reality, no matter how perfectly you do your job, how skilled you are or how many billions of dollars you make, since you are doing it out of worldly motivation, attachment clinging to this life, the work you do can never become the cause of happiness but constantly becomes the cause of suffering instead.
Actually, your job is merely a condition for your receiving a pay check. The principal cause of you getting paid is the good karma you created previously through giving generously to others or making offering to the Three Jewels of Refuge, other holy objects and so forth. It is also only through previously created good karma that you got your job in the first place—the job that itself is simply a condition for your getting paid.
Thus you can see that what you lack is education in how karma works.
All over the world you will find people who have never been educated at school or college or ever done a day’s work in their lives but are extremely wealthy, possessing enough money to last several lifetimes. This shows that what is generally considered to be success—wealth and reputation—can be had without either outer education or what’s called a ‘‘profession’’ or even a regular job. It all depends on karma.