Why Is It So Difficult to Obtain a Human Body?

Sentient beings today almost all have extremely deep afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion, yet they themselves are unaware of it. However, greed, anger, and delusion create boundless evil karma, and in the future they will almost certainly fall into the three evil paths; the hope of being reborn as a human is extremely slim. It is because sentient beings have ignorance that they create karma of greed, anger, and delusion; and it is precisely because of ignorance that they do not even know it is evil karma. What is precious about humans is having self-knowledge. If one does not study the Buddha-dharma and does not understand cause and effect, one remains in ignorance; or even if one has studied the Buddha-dharma, one still does not understand cause and effect, not knowing that all of one's bodily, verbal, and mental actions have retribution, and thus one acts willfully and recklessly, giving no thought whatsoever to the consequences. Whether what one does is right or wrong—one's own judgment is not accurate; one must rely on the principles taught by the Buddha to make that judgment. Since beginningless kalpas, sentient beings have created vast amounts of evil karma, transmigrating through the six paths without cease, and the chance of obtaining a human body is minuscule. Therefore, they do not know how to be human, do not understand the principles of being human, and are unable to introspect on their own afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion.

The Buddha compared the chance of sentient beings obtaining a human body over countless kalpas to this: in a vast, surging, turbulent ocean there is a sea turtle, and on the sea floats a piece of driftwood with a round hole in it, just large enough for the turtle's head to pass through. The chance of this turtle, facing wind and waves, thrusting its head into the hole in the driftwood is extremely small—such, the Buddha said, is how small the chance of obtaining a human body is. Once, the Buddha scooped up a handful of soil from the ground and then threw it away, and asked the assembly: Is there more soil under my fingernail, or more soil on the great earth? The disciples answered: There is more soil on the great earth. The Buddha said that the chance of sentient beings obtaining a human body is as little as the soil under my fingernail, while the chance of not obtaining a human body is as great as the soil of the great earth.

The Buddha said in the Āgama sūtras that sentient beings spend the vast majority of their time in the three evil paths; when a portion of the karma of the three evil paths has been extinguished and a little merit remains, they obtain a human body again and become human—but as humans they again fail to do well, create much evil karma, and after death fall into the evil paths again. In the three evil paths, time spent in the hells is counted in kalpas, time spent as hungry ghosts is also counted in kalpas, and as animals, each kind of animal must be undergone at least five hundred times; only when the evil karma has been exhausted do they return to the human world. So we can see that the vast majority of people do not know how to be human, and human moral character is poor—precisely because they have spent too long in the three evil paths and have had no opportunity to practice human affairs, they do not know how to be human. That we have obtained human bodies in this life and have also encountered the Buddha-dharma means we truly should cultivate diligently, sparing ourselves those long-kalpa sufferings. Why create evil deeds just to satisfy the afflictions of our own greed, anger, and delusion? A person of wisdom should calm the mind and contemplate, make comparisons, consider how to live this life, and consider how in the future to no longer suffer, so as to resolve the greatest problem of the suffering of birth and death.