The Precious of Human Birth

Recently a blogger post his experience on commit suicide and another blogger made a comment on that. Well, I want to share my experience on the precious of human birth which is I learn from Dharma class.

Some basic fundamental about Buddhism. There are 6 realms in Buddhism, god, asura (demon), human, hungry ghost, animal and hell. So how difficult to obtain the precious human birth? Buddha gave us a simile in Balapandita Sutta – the Discourse of Foolish and Wise. The Buddha describe the suffering of the animal kingdom, giving the Simile of the One-eyed Turtle to illustrate just how difficult it is to regain human birth, once one is reborn in the animal realm.

“A man makes a hole in a log and set it adrift in the ocean. When the win comes from the eat the log drifts weatwards.. when the win blows from the west, it drifts eastward. Similarly, north winds push it to the south, and south winds push it to the north. In the ocean is a one-eyed turtle that surfaces only once every hundred years. Is it possible that the one-eyed turtle would put its head up through the hole in the log?

It would be very difficult for the one-eyed turble to meet up with the drifting log. Then the Buddha explained.

“Monks, this rare chance, this freak occurrence is possible, but for the bad man who is reborn as an animal or in hell to become a human being again is rarer and more difficult”

Human status is exceedingly rare. Once this rare chance is gone, one finds the greatest difficulty to be reborn again as human being. For a one-eyed turtle wandering in the ocean to encounter the hole in the log is possible only if the log never rots, and only if the turtle lives for a billions of years.

Human rebirth is difficult to obtain and easy to lose. So don’t you guys ever think to end your life!