Friends:
Precious yet often
wasted is this Human Opportunity!
The Blessed
Gotama Buddha once
explained:
Bhikkhus
& friends, imagine a single floating ring drifting in the great oceans!
Imagine also a blind turtle, which surfaces only once every hundred
years...
What do you think, Bhikkhus, would that blind turtle by chance often
dive
right up under this randomly drifting single ring & insert its neck
in the hole?
If it ever would at all, Sir, it would only happen after an
incredibly long time!
Yet, Bhikkhus & friends, I tell you, that this
would happen sooner, than a fool,
who has fallen into the lower worlds would
again regain this rare human state...
Why so? Because down there exists
neither behaviour guided by the Dhamma,
nor any honesty, nor any morality,
nor any good doing or meritorious activity...
There prevails only this evil:
beat or be beaten, eat or be eaten, cruel merciless
killing and voraciously
swallowing up of any weak. Why is it so primitive there?
Because, Bhikkhus,
there nobody have seen these 4 Noble
Truths! What four?
All
this
is Suffering; This
Greedy Craving is
the
sole Cause of all Suffering;
No
Craving
is the End
of Suffering; The
Noble 8-fold Way Ends all Suffering,
Therefore should an effort be made
NOW to understand the 4 Noble
Truths!
Comment:
Despite
the fact that downfall is a common event occurring at most deaths
(>97%)
many beings think that the downfall either not happen to them (sic!),
or
that it does not exist at all... They cannot remember the last nasty
surprise...
Learning anything about cause and effect is thus effectively
disabled!
The very same mistakes are thus repeated, life after life, almost
endlessly!
The Blind
Sea-Turtle Simile...
Source
(edited extract):
The
Grouped Sayings of the Buddha. Samyutta Nikāya. [V:455-6]
section 56:
Saccasamyutta. Thread 47: The Ring and Blind Turtle ...
Precious & rare
is this human chance!
Don't be a Blind Turtle!
Have
a nice
&
noble
day!
Friendship
is the Greatest!
Bhikkhu Samāhita
_/\_ ]
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