I like 0HPLand this is an interesting thread, but he seems confused. He criticizes Crowley and @jack style Vipassana, but then seems also to be citing their failures as the failure of Buddhism per se (??)

I shall clear up the confusion of those who find Buddhism to be "passive." https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1254742904771313667

Maybe I shouldn't be QT'ing here, as it's not a direct response, and not meant to invalidate (some of) his points. But that thread is what prompted me to write this, so I'll let it stand.

"No one is even remotely tempted to take Buddhism seriously on its own terms" is not true.

What are its "own terms"?

"Dependent co-arising" is right at the core of Buddhism, and it's what makes it such a radically active, vigorous, and even solar practice. People have an image of Buddhists as very passive, but this has always been a complete misunderstanding.

The Buddha's exhortation is not that we should sit back and "just like, observe, maaaan." But rather that we should literally CREATE our way to ultimate liberation. Dependent co-arising and the teaching on karma are what make this possible.

Dependent co-arising is the teaching that "When this is, that is. When that is, this is." Nothing exists completely on its own. All dharmas (all things) depend on their conditions. When the conditions cease, the thing ceases.

In every moment, you have past karma AND present karma creating the conditions of your experience. It's too late to do anything about past karma, but present karma is always radically free in the present moment. You can create new conditions and give rise to happiness.

In order to *do* this, though, you must first get at least a bare minimum of mental calm and clarity. That's what all that breath meditation is about... it's a technique for slowing things down enough that you can finally start to see how you're creating your present karma.

Fabricating the Path: The insight of the Buddha is that we are always, all the time, in every moment, creating the reality we experience. But rather than admonish us to "Just stop fabricating, dummy!" he instead teaches a way to "fabricate better, O Bhikkhus."

This isn't passive. In fact, it is the people who reject this wisdom who are the passive ones. They continue fabricating their lives, but on autopilot. We've all been there... trying to scrape together enough willpower to make a change from time to time, but mostly just going

down the same well-trodden paths as always. Life on autopilot means even our moments of great anguish or deep cogitation are "determined" by past karma, because we're not exercising the real freedom we could be creating for ourselves.

We think whatever thoughts pop into our head, following them like a cow led by the nose. We feel victimized by our own emotions, or else vindicated by them... but always passive about whether or not we *have* to feel a certain way.

And we exhibit shameful behavior and use our words in extremely damaging or foolish ways because we have very little understanding of how they shape our present and future, and really we often act like selfish children.

That's real passivity. That's "going with the flow."

Buddhism is the opposite. Yes, in breath meditation, you do indeed try to quiet the mind enough so that you can observe your thoughts and feelings as they arise and pass away. But the Buddha never said anything about "Just watch it float by, man. That's all you gotta do."

Vipassana as it's practiced in the West now has about as much relationship to the Sutras as Santa Claus has to the Gospels. Likewise the common idea that Zen somehow means being really calm and dopey all the time (???). As for Aleister Crowley, I'm not even going to dignify that.

As for Nietzsche. When he attacked a straw-man "Buddhism" he was attacking a certain kind of passive attitude that larps as holiness, and I agree with him (and so would the Buddha!). Nietzsche knew fuck-all about Buddhism.

I believe he got his notions from Schopenhauer's own weird, particular interpretation of "Buddhism" but I haven't read the corresponding sections of S, so I might be wrong there. In any case, while N wrote extremely insightful things about, say, Ancient Greece...

he is a laughable source for any commentary on actual Buddhism. It's embarrassing how many people dust off this quote just to ... to prove they are also equally as clueless as Nietzsche was, I guess?

Buddhism is not passive in the slightest. Instead, you are supposed to take a radically active role in creating a new path: examining every presupposition, every "genuine feeeeeeling, man", every unexamined thought.

And then you make yourself free to choose the best actions, the wisest words, the most skillful thoughts, the most open or loving or powerful emotions. (Obviously I personally have much more work to do, but these are the stated goals)

In any case, "just observing" in the breath meditation is not the end point (as many moderns seem to think), but the beginning point. By investigating the roots of your experience, you become free to take an active role in your inner life in a way that's hard to describe.

Ultimately, the Buddha does teach that release, liberation, "unbinding" is the final goal, the greatest happiness. But you do NOT get there by finding beauty in your own belly button lint, or staring around blankly at the world like a goon.

You get there by rejecting the idea that you MUST feel or think or act a certain way. By grabbing your own experience by the fucking bull's horns and wrestling it moment by moment in the direction that will lead to happiness, happiness for yourself and those around you.

(Addendum on the notion that we can "rewrite" our thoughts and feelings. I realize this sounds kind of weird, almost robotic or inhuman. All I can say is it's exactly the opposite, and that the "robotic" way of living is, in fact, when we're in thrall to our own past karma...

I could explain why, but that's a whole new thread. The best proof is being around a genuine master, who are always intensely human and real in a way that makes it clear that *we* are the less-human ones when we cling to our petty notions of "MY" emotions and "MY" thoughts...

As I said before "They don't lock you up in heaven when you get there." Meaning, if you uproot the ignorance that causes a certain emotion you once clung to, you are always free to go plant the seed again if you really want to. But the thing is, no one ever wants to.)

Da end.