Precious yet often wasted is this Dhamma
Opportunity!
The Blessed
Gotama
Buddha
once explained:
Bhikkhus & friends, imagine a single floating ring drifting in the great
oceans!
The Northern, Southern, Western and Eastern winds drive it here and there...
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 by an exceedingly rare
chance!
Similarly, Bhikkhus it is by an exceedingly rare chance that one becomes
human;
it is by an extraordinarily rare chance that a Well-Come-&-Gone-One, an
Arahat,
a Perfectly Self-Enlightened Buddha arises in this world; and it is thus also
by
an exceptionally rare chance that the Dhamma and Discipline explained by this
Tathagata shines forth in this world and saves it from Barbarism.
Bhikkhus: You have now gained that precious & rare human state, a Tathagata,
an Arahat, a Perfectly Self-Enlightened Buddha has arisen in the world, & the
Dhamma and Discipline proclaimed by the Tathagata shines out in this world...
Therefore, Bhikkhus & friends, an exertion should be made
Now to understand:
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 effort to fathom these
4 Noble Truths be made NOW!
Comment:
It is now or never. May a sense of urgency save many from the ruin of
neglect!
Source (edited extract):
The Grouped Sayings of the Buddha. Samyutta Nikāya.
[V:456-7]
section 56: Saccasamyutta. Thread 48: The Ring and Blind Turtle 2 ...
