What constitutes a virtuous life for a flea? Or a wicked one?
The Buddha said that being incarnate as a human was the best possible birth, even better than living for 10,000 years of bliss as a deva (god), because human life provides the greatest opportunities to improve your karma.
However, he also said this (paraphrased): In the vast ocean there is an ancient turtle that only surfaces for air once every hundred years. Floating on the ocean is a single garland of flowers. Your chances of being reincarnated as a human are the same as the chances that the turtle will surface for air and stick his head through the garland of flowers.
In other words, having found yourself here, make the most of the opportunity. “Life is short; live as if your head is on fire.”
PraiseofFolly about 1 year ago
“Siphonaptera” is a name used1 to refer to the following rhyme by Augustus De Morgan (Siphonaptera being the biological order to which fleas belong):
“Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on”
.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonaptera_(poem)
.
(See also, Jonathan Swift poem, from which the above derives.)
fritzoid Premium Member about 1 year ago
What constitutes a virtuous life for a flea? Or a wicked one?
The Buddha said that being incarnate as a human was the best possible birth, even better than living for 10,000 years of bliss as a deva (god), because human life provides the greatest opportunities to improve your karma.
However, he also said this (paraphrased): In the vast ocean there is an ancient turtle that only surfaces for air once every hundred years. Floating on the ocean is a single garland of flowers. Your chances of being reincarnated as a human are the same as the chances that the turtle will surface for air and stick his head through the garland of flowers.
In other words, having found yourself here, make the most of the opportunity. “Life is short; live as if your head is on fire.”