In the Chiggala Sutta, the Buddha asks his monks to imagine that someone sets a yoke with a single hole afloat in the ocean, and that somewhere in this vast ocean lives a blind sea turtle who surfaces only once every hundred years. For the turtle to surface and happen to poke its head through that drifting yoke would be so unlikely as to seem nearly impossible—and yet, the Buddha says, this is an apt metaphor to speak of how rare it is to be born human and encounter the dharma. Yours in the dharma, Shoan Training Coordinator Zen Mountain Monastery