Matthew 13:17 · World English Bible
For most certainly I tell you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which you see, and didn’t see them; and to hear the things which you hear, and didn’t hear them.
Buddhuppāda: The arising of an Awakened One Such a one appears rarely, with long empty stretches of world in between. Across those stretches the prophets and righteous men pile up, each longing toward a sight that arrived generations after they were buried.
From the Buddhism reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
BUDDHISM
Buddhuppāda: The arising of an Awakened One Such a one appears rarely, with long empty stretches of world in between. Across those stretches the prophets and righteous men pile up, each longing toward a sight that arrived generations after they were buried. Their desire was in good order; the timing was against them. Whoever sits close enough to ask why the sower story was told holds what all those better lives asked for and were refused.
Khaṇa: The opportune moment A window when the conditions for waking line up, and it does not stay open. Being born in a stretch with no teaching available counts among the worst draws a person can get, however upright the life lived inside it. The prophets stood on the far side of that window and pressed their faces to the glass. Being within earshot while the parables are still being spoken is the window itself.
Saddhammassavana: Hearing the true teaching Among the handful of conditions that lead to a first breakthrough, this one comes in through the ear. The whole shoreline caught every syllable about seed and thorns and went home with a farming story; hearing in the blessed sense is the seed getting past the ear and into the ground. Being in range of a voice that teaches the way out is the rare piece, and no amount of righteousness manufactures it. Generations listened hard for exactly this and died still listening.
Dhammacakkhu: The eye of the teaching An eye that opens when the teaching lands, after which the world looks different. A blessing fell on those eyes a moment before, though they take in the same field, the same birds, the same rocky ground as everyone else on the beach. The difference sits in the seeing, not in the scenery. Prophets read their own age clearly and still went without this.
Saṁvega: Urgency The jolt that comes with knowing the chance is short. Counting the many who wanted this and died wanting it turns an afternoon of sitting and listening into something worth spending carefully. It works like a hand at the back, moving a person from admiring the teaching to doing something with it, since whoever lets the moment slip grieves afterward, and the moment is this one, ears working, teacher still talking.
Buddhism lens
What do I already have in my hands that someone else spent a lifetime hoping for?
The trouble is not that life is short but that we spend it as though there were more coming. The present hour is the only one anybody has ever actually held.
Knowing when you already have enough, and knowing when to stop, is what keeps a life from being spent on what does not matter.
Do not say you will study when you have time, because the time you are waiting for may never arrive. What is in front of you now is the chance.
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Buddhism