Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why you may be here upon this earth at this time?
Did anyone explain to you how you arrived here at this extraordinary time in history and not at another time?
You could,
In a different time and under different conditions,
Have lived in the village and chopped wood and carried water.
But no,
You didn't.
You came here,
Now,
To this world at this time,
At the end of the age of intoxication and the pursuit of pleasure.
It is no mean feat to appear upon the earth as blessed with good fortune as most of us have.
The Buddha gave a discourse one time in which he explained how rare it is to appear upon the earth blessed with a fortunate human birth.
He said,
Suppose you were to throw a yoke into the vast ocean and set it adrift to float where it may.
And suppose then there was a blind turtle swimming in that ocean who raised his head up above the surface once every hundred years.
Greater is the chance of that blind turtle raising his head within that drifting yoke than is the chance of achieving such a fortunate human life as this.
Think about it for a moment.
Here we are,
Somewhere down the line upon this fortunate human life of ours,
Upon this miraculous planet that supports such a life,
Just a dot in the vastness of space.
How many aeons does it take for such conditions as this to appear?
How long did we wait for the chance to appear here at this time?
How great once was our longing to behold the extraordinary display of beauty that creation unfolds for us everywhere that we cast our eyes?
How quickly did we forget the miracle of creation as we instead became intoxicated with our own creations?
Let us all take responsibility for our presence here and learn to live in a way that we may bequeath this blessed planet in all its miraculous beauty to those who are still to come,
Who like us have waited for so long for their chance to behold it.
