“One must always strive to remember and understand that to have been born as a human being is the greatest of all possible blessings, and will not be repeated.

People may think ‘Oh, I had many past lives, I will have many future lives’. Even if this is so, these lives were not human lives. They were lives of ghosts and demons, animals or plants, or lives of gods. None of these have even the possibility of awakening.

You must understand urgently: only in a human life does this possibility exist at all. And to gain even one such lifetime is more rare that is imaginable. It would be as if you dropped a penny and it accidentally hit the Sun.

Only when this is understood, that only one lifetime as a human will be had, is it possible to awaken in this life. Without this understanding of the grave and terrible preciousness of this single human birth, no awakening is possible.

Gods do not awaken, for they do not suffer. And when they perish, they fall to lower realms. Demons and ghosts are always engaged in false things, viciousness and such, and thus have no chance to awaken. Plants and animals participate in the dharma, but cannot achieve the learning of the dharma. So they do not awaken.

One human life is more precious than achieving heaven, and only here does one experience the opportunity — and one must recognize and take advantage of it in this lifetime — for awakening.”

— transliteration of the teaching of Khenpo Lekshey, from his video 7 point mind training, part 1