Preciousness of Human Life

I feel that people don’t really understand how precious human life is. They only know the preciousness of their brains. But what else and why is human life precious? We are told of the story of the blind turtle surfacing to the yoke floating on the ocean once every hundreds thousands of aeons. Almost everyone has heard of that story. So, we know it is rare, but does that automatically mean it is precious? I think not. Something that is rare does not by itself mean it is precious. Lately, after contemplating on the preciousness of the human existence, I managed to get an understanding. I think it is precious because of the potential within the human body itself. As long aswe still have it, we should strive to realise its potential. Until then, it is kind of hidden. It’s like in the movie “Transformers”, Sam did not realize his old car is actually one of the Autobots until it transforms itself. No other type of body in the other five realms of existence has this potential. The body of the lower beings are replete with only suffering, whereas the higher realms, some of them have no body at all (i.e. formless) and most have a subtle body. It is only the human body (flesh, blood, everything) that is endowed with the cakras, winds and channels. If combined with the mind, there is great potential there. And since ancient times there are humans that have understood this potential. In Hinduism, they practice various types of yogas to tap the potential. We have seen them in their twisted bodies. The Taoists harness the potential in the human body for longevity and immortality through various qigong exercises and meditations. Buddhists are slightly different inmotivation. We don’t strive for immortality. Instead,we strive for enlightenment. Gautama Buddha, thehistorical Buddha, tapped the potential in the humanbody and mind to become the Buddha of our era. Hence, we can see therein within this human body of ours,lies so much potential, so much precious “jewels”.However, if we merely keep it but do not know how torealize it, it remains only a potential. It is likehaving a credit card that you do not have to repay butyou are not using it to buy things. Only keeping it. Nevertheless, for human life, keeping it is a respectfor its precious potential and rareness. Majority of humans do want to live as long as possible and they do respect other lives.