Your Human Life Is Way More Precious Than Modernity Has You Believe
And it is exactly where it needs to be right now
Precious human rebirth. The Buddhists’ idea that humans are uniquely suited to self-development, owing to the balance of pleasure and suffering in our world.
Gods, ghosts, spirits and animals don’t have this balanced opportunity — so we should realize how special it is (so as not to waste it).
The Buddha once used a metaphor of a blind sea turtle coming up for air once every 100 years, who just happens to pass its head through a floating piece of rope on the surface.
The chances of this are said to be higher than the opportunity to attain a human reincarnation from one of the other realms of existence.
It’s a way to urge us to take this opportunity seriously. There are countless trillions of life-forms either too hopelessly ignorant to learn how to prevent their own suffering.
And if we live our lives like they do, how will we get this chance again?
Yet something didn’t sit right with me when I heard this and tried reflecting on it deeply.
