In the lat­est Audio Dharma pod­cast, Gil Frons­dal asks the ques­tion, “What does being a good stu­dent mean to you?”

Think­ing it over, the most impor­tant thing that springs to my mind is, of course, the one I’m not so good at: prac­tis­ing. You can lis­ten all you like, you can under­stand what you’re told, you can have a firm grasp of the prin­ci­ples… but unless you finally get off your arse (or on your arse, in the case of med­i­ta­tion) and do some­thing with the knowl­edge you’ve acquired, then you’re just wast­ing everyone’s time.

This is one of my fail­ings. I tend to think of it as a prob­lem of integrity. Integrity, to me, means act­ing in the way you under­stand to be right. It’s all very well know­ing that I should med­i­tate reg­u­larly, that I shouldn’t eat when I’m not hun­gry, that work­ing a dull job is prob­a­bly not help­ing my san­ity. I have lots of knowl­edge, some of it hard-won through per­sonal expe­ri­ence, some of it passed on by smart teach­ers and smart friends.

And I don’t do enough about it. I don’t put my knowl­edge into prac­tice. The gap between the things that I know and the things that I do — my lack of integrity — is my main problem.

So, that’s what I think is most impor­tant for me, as a stu­dent: nar­row­ing that gap. It’s even pos­si­ble that I should stop study­ing, as such, until I’ve started doing. Oth­er­wise I might take all that hard-won knowl­edge with me to the grave, hav­ing never actu­ally done any­thing with it.

What does being a good stu­dent mean to you?