..续本文上一页on, your brittle self is likely to snap when confronted with any setback.
Some college graduates suffer mental breakdowns when they find no job after having been out of school a year or two. Really, finding no job is not a big deal. If you”ve learned the law of cause and effect, you will know that your various misfortunes are caused by your failure in accumulating enough merit in your previous lives. Hence, there”s no need to complain about your unhappy lot, blaming others or God.
The job prospects for the current college graduates are not that encouraging either. A report says that there were 5.6 million college graduates in 2008, of whom only 30% have secured a job, that leaves 70%, or 4 million graduates still waiting in line for job offers. While this problem is yet to be solved, the class of 2009 will be out of school soon, and the number of this crop is even bigger—6.1 million of them! Thus the unemployment issue is now unprecedentedly pressing. There are reports that elite graduates from Peking University are working as pig farmers and 46 college graduates swarmed in to apply for a job opening as a public toilet attendee in Sujou City ….
Hence, do not feel it”s the end of the world when you can”t find a job. If you happen to be a Buddhist, especially if you have practiced a little, you will be able to get over whatever difficulty is presented to you, as you realize that your every encounter is the playing out of causes and conditions which, incidentally, has a lot to do with your past and present lives. Understanding this principle, you can face any situation with courage.
Therefore, it is crucial to learn how to adjust your mindset. The Han classic Zonjinlu (The Mirror of Orthodoxy) says: “A right mind makes all circumstances right, a perverted mind makes all circumstances perverted.” If the mind is sound, so will be the surroundings; if the mind is corrupt, all subsequent actions will go wayward. Nowadays some people, upon failing their job hunt, get involved in various kinds of illegal activities and cause grave harm to others. Again, their erroneous mindset is to blame for their downfall. So please strive to be an upright person, or, if you cannot make it 100%, at least avoid drifting along with the herd.
Many of you in this room belong to the Normal University and you are likely to become schoolteachers one day. To lead your future students, it is vital that you hold a right view. Amongst all kinds of mental attitudes to cultivate, the most essential one is the willingness to help all living beings with love and compassion, unconditionally. An education lacking such kindheartedness but emphasizing only grades is definitely not an authentic one per se.
In today”s education system, this is the missing piece. A student”s potential is assessed only by his or her grade on the report card, never by proper behavior. Brought up in this way, students will be ill-adjusted when they set foot in society. I myself have met scores of inpiduals with advanced degrees or training: Master, Ph.D., or Postdoc. But their diplomas from elite universities do not guarantee them to be remarkably outstanding. These inpiduals prove to be quite disappointing in many ways after a period of interaction.
Larry Hsien Ping Lang, professor of Hong Kong Chinese University, has voiced his opinion in that respect: Young people nowadays, including his own son, really do not have to go to graduate school for an advanced degrees such as a Ph.D., a bachelor”s degree is good enough. Although I do not see eye to eye with his point of view, in some respect it exposes the problems of today”s education system.
The minds of many young people today are fully occupied by how to make big bucks and how to enjoy life. Having gone to school all their lives, they …
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