Humans can be seen as highly favored, in that they have an immediate reason to seek out the Dharma and yet also have the means to listen to it and follow it.
Among the lower realms, Pretas (aka hungry ghosts), and dwellers in the Narakas (Buddhist hell(s)) are gripped by pain and fear, and can only endure their lot but cannot better themselves.
Most of the Brahmas and Devas simply enjoy reaping the fruits of their past actions and think that they are immortal and forever to be happy and so they do not try to practice the Dharma.
Born close to the pivot point of happiness and suffering, humans have a unique capacity for moral choices with long-term significance.
The Majjhima Nikaya (129 Balapandita Sutta) compares it to a wooden cattle-yoke floating on the waves of the sea, tossed this way and that by the winds and currents.
"[8] According to the Aggañña Sutta (DN.27), humans originated at the beginning of the current kalpa as Brahma-like beings reborn from the Ābhāsvara Brahma-realm.
They were then beings shining in their own light, capable of moving through the air without mechanical aid, living for a very long time, and not requiring sustenance.
Following this, greed, theft and violence arose among them, and they consequently established social distinctions and government and elected a king to rule them, called Mahāsammata, "the great appointed one".
The ocean is in turn surrounded by a circular mountain wall called Cakravāḍa (Sanskrit) or Cakkavāḷa (Pāli) which marks the horizontal limit of the earth.