Dear students, the period in which you are students is, in truth, the time when you must make the fullest of your youth — for once this period has passed, you will have no choice but to shoulder the burdens of work and responsibility. To smile with full and open joy, to laugh with wholehearted ease — once the years of study are behind you, these become difficult, for the weight of responsibilities will press upon you from every side. Therefore, gather academic knowledge to the fullest — and gather knowledge of the Dhamma to the fullest as well.
In particular, make haste to study the Dhamma, so that it may be used to cultivate and refine your own character. Every teaching of the Dhamma that you have studied and come to know — if it has not yet been put into practice to the point of becoming habit — cannot be put to any useful purpose whatsoever.
Every teaching of the Dhamma must be trained into habit through consistent practice. And this period of being a student is the most fitting time of all to train the Dhamma into habit with the greatest ease — for you are not yet burdened with the demands of earning a living. Once this period has passed, finding the time to cultivate and refine one’s own character becomes exceedingly difficult, for one will be pressed on all sides by the relentless demands of work.
Record of a Dhamma Teaching to Faculty Members and Students of the Buddhist Society February 6th, 2016
