In plain words
The ant had to laugh. ‘Where are you, and where am I! I have no food here that would be enough for you!’, it said. It is natural for ants to store up food enough for six months. The ant went inside and had the food it had stored brought out by its friends. ‘How could so small an ant have stored so much food!’ the bear wondered. Even a little ant eats this much of the food God has given, gives some to its friends, and can still keep some put away. But man, endowed with boundless intelligence, cannot earn his own food for himself. ‘Of all creatures, birth as a human is hard to attain’, it is said. Yet man, unable to put his intelligence to good use, goes about as someone petty. Because selfishness and self-interest run beyond all bounds in him, his intelligence goes off course and he sinks down into a low state. When man puts selfishness away, even the small power in him takes shape as a great power. Man has all the power and intelligence he needs. With all this, how must he guard them? When, and in what way, must he use them? He makes no effort to recognise this method and order. Students today study many kinds of learning. There seems to be no book the students have not read. The books are crammed with learning; the head is crammed with mud. Filling their heads with useless things, students misuse the strength they need for life.
‘Why study all the learning there is, only to die? Study the learning that knows no death.’
The students have learnt the cleverness to give a fitting answer to whatever anyone asks, but they make no effort to put their learning to fitting use.