During the video sharing tonight, Master Sheng Yen was talking about the wisdom that comes from concentration. One of the interesting things I got out of this lecture as Master Sheng Yen's example of why he became a doctoral student and got his degree. Many of his followers have asked Master Sheng Yen, "why does a monk need to have a doctorate?" at which point he replied that the doctoral degree is utterly useless to him! Well, amazing that he would see it that way! But Master Sheng Yen observed that without such a degree,he wouldn't be able to communicate Dharma teachings to such a wide audience, such as through the TV and other media.
In a way, what Master Sheng Yen says actually motivates me to keep going in my education, perhaps for two reasons. The first is that it takes away the "false prestige" that sometimes plagues people when pursuing a degree. The more attached I become to the notion of getting a degree, the less I focus on the actual learning process behind taking courses and so on. The second point is that it de-selves the degree, by suggesting that it's really for the benefit of others that we have such things as "degrees". Education provides the social discourses necessary for people to work together to collaborate on new projects and ideas; it's not about having a static certificate on a wall, but is actually an active process of intercommunication. But to try to value myself by how many degrees I have "earned" is counterproductive. Not only does it lead to self-attachment to notions of personal worth and identity, but it also makes the degree into a static accolade, which fails to convey the process of learning as a dialogue-based process.
I quite liked Master Sheng Yen's vision of what education is about and how it can lead people to less self-attachment and a life of engagement,
Sheng Yen, "Deriving Wisdom from Concentration". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gljxwLC_9sM
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