Part 2 - The special human body

To explain further:

Not having entered the teachings, confused about good and evil,
Preoccupied with this life, distracted by its business,
Irreverent and careless, neglecting what is to come,
With no interest in liberation, though they may hear the Dharma,
They do not have the best body, but only the middle kind.

Occasionally their minds are drawn to something wholesome,
But mostly their mental vision is blocked by evil deeds.
They only go through the motions. What good are they to anyone?
Whether they take the form of a householder or a monk,
Only because they are slightly above lower realms,
The Buddha has said that these have a special human body.

The Jewel of Space Sutra (nam mkha’ rin po che’i mdo) says:

In the realm of sentient beings. some do not enter properly into the Dharma, even though they could, because their behavior mixes right and wrong, and they busy themselves with distractions of worldly activities. Their body, speech, and mind, are irreverent and careless. Falling into the three lower realms, they have the karma of remaining there. However, since they have seen the sunlight of the Buddha's compassion, and have had seeds of liberation for a long time, they are said to have the special human body.

Because their behavior mixes vice and virtue and they are involved with merely verbal learning of Dharma, they are not protected from the lower realms. The Samadhiraja Sutra says:

Breaking their discipline, they go to the lower realms.
Though they may have great leaning, they are unprotected.

The Nirvana Sutra says:

Kashyapa, the monk Devadatta had heard only the ordinary Sutra vehicle called “the burden of an elephant.^[1]” Even though he grasped it, because of his non-virtue, he fell into the lower realms.

The Pair Sutra (zung gi mdo) says:

Collection of Medicines, those sentient beings who wail so at the time of death are not among those who possess ripened karma of good deeds. If these are protected from karma, who would not be?

Also it says there:

Though the Tathagata has arisen and been seen,
And though the striking of the gandi has been heard,
Though they have heard the teachings of the holy Dharma,
Which take us to the peace that is called nirvana,
Nevertheless they never acted on what they heard.
People such as these are later going to say:

“I am a person with the mind of a perfect fool.
Having fallen under the power of bad companions,
By the desires which rose from confusion in my mind,
I have produced the karma of performing evil deeds.

“By cultivating and going along with these desires
I have been a murderer of living beings.
By having wasted the goods of the noble assembly
I will know the unbearable fruit of doing that.

“I was a destroyer of stupas by my harmful thoughts
By malicious words I punished everyone, even my mother.
Regarding this human body that I formerly made,
Soon all my transgressions will be fully known.

“My mind will then be summoned to the lowest Hells.
The births I see ahead are more than I can bear.”