It is not possible to describe how fortunate a human being is; of all living beings, human birth is the rarest.
We, born as human beings, are very fortunate.
Why so? I shall give you an analogy. ” Imagine you are someone who participates in a lottery that is followed by millions of people. After the drawing, in the end, you become the winner of the grand prize worth millions of dollars. Likewise, of all living beings in the vast universe, only few succeed in possessing a human body while others are still circling and wandering in other realms”
We are all very fortunate to become humans and meet here and speak the principle of truth because very few can hear the truth, moreover to attain and achieve the highest enlightenment.
A Buddha’s wise word says,
“Hard is it to be born a man; hard is the life of mortals. Hard is it to gain the opportunity of hearing the Sublime Truth, and hard to encounter is the arising of the Buddhas.”(Dhammapada chapter XIV : 182)
I will explain what Buddha means to circle or wander around in other realms. So this explains how many creatures need and experience reincarnation/birth repeatedly.
Some still live in the lowest planet such as the animal realm, hell, and devil realm. Verily are countless of them and difficult to calculate.
So it is analogized to someone who holds a bit of sand from the amount of sand in the sea. So very few succeed in becoming human. How many of them?
In the Vedas in Purana Sloka is explained that someone who reaches the human form must go through 8.4 million species of life. So countless! Maybe next time I will explain in more detail about 8.4 million existences.
So, after we know the luck to become human, what should we do now? Now, this is an honest question! I will give an analogy again. “Like a poor beggar begging from one house to another, he forgets that someone puts an expensive gem in his pocket. Likewise, the man from every birth to birth always forgets the greatness in him”
I think you begin to understand now that being born as a human is a great blessing but there is a greater blessing in that. What is that? That God resides within you; there is a Buddha resides within you. That is why the human body is very worth it. This is a truth that we must find immediately.
The saints of Indian describe this body as a sacred temple and God dwells in it. Buddha says in the sutras of the perfect awareness that all beings have the essence of Buddha and can become Buddhas.
So, you have understood two lucks of you today, which is, succeeding in securing a human body and God or the Buddha resides behind this human dress. Now the door of liberation has come closer to find this latent holy Gem so that you will be free from the wheel of Samsara.