In plain words
Just as, when we keep valuable things near us, we set about using them in the right way, so too, when the most precious humanness has come to us, we must also recognise the way to use this sacred humanness. This humanness is something received by gathering up the wealth of merit of many births. Because you do not know what the wealth of merit is, because you cannot recognise the worth of the wealth of merit, you do not give so much importance to this humanness you have received. If we really tried to recognise the wealth of merit well, we would not set about wasting this humanness so much. A small, amusing example of this. A man took a broken watch and told a repairman to put it right. Then the man who repairs watches: “This is badly broken; it will need a great deal of repair. For the cost of repairing it you could buy two watches. The price you paid for the watch will go on its repair alone. The repair charge will come to twice what you paid,” he said. Then the man who had handed in the watch said, “Even if it is twice, never mind; I will pay.” The repairman thought, ‘Perhaps this is a lucky watch or some such, poor man,’ and he put in brand-new parts and made it good. In the second week the owner of the watch went and asked, ‘Is my watch ready? Give it to me.’ ‘It has come to twice what you paid for it; pay that and take it,’ said the man who had repaired it. Then the watch's owner gave the repairman two slaps on the cheek. Crying, ‘He is giving him blows like this!’, everyone there seized him and handed him over to the police. When the policeman came and said, ‘Why, man! Why did you act like this?’, ‘He said the repair charge for this watch was double. In fact I never bought this watch; I gave another man one slap on the cheek and took it. So the moment this man said the repair charge was double, I gave him two slaps and took it,’ he said. If he had truly known the worth of this watch, he would not have set about giving this watch in for repair. In the same way, we do not come to know the worth of our body.