Even if you understand all the Buddha’s speech, if you cannot demonstrate this understanding when called upon, it is worth nothing. Dry cognition cannot help your life. Even if you read all the eighty-four thousand sutras and attend dharma talks regularly, it will not help you as much as experiencing one moment of clear mind. At the moment of your death, what will your intellectual understanding do for you? In the future, you will eventually lose this body: at that time, how will your academic knowledge help you get a new one? All of our understanding is only somebody else’s idea. No matter how great this understanding is, if it hasn’t been digested and become yours through the practice of meditation, it cannot help you.

-- Zen Master Seung Sahn