Five mildly anti-Buddhist essays
This person is part of a weird New Wave of Twitterati Buddhists-not-Buddhists who are happy to throw out huge chunks of the dharma in the name of going their own way. It&#x27;s not bearing good fruits. This person also wrote a long screed on divorce that was really about spritzing their favorite perfume scent and barely mentioning the person they divorced except as backdrop to the great “I”. [1] It&#x27;s a new wave that thrives on egoic displays like these, undermining big portions of very helpful dharma teachings like ethics.<p>Look folks, I know it&#x27;s vogue in a post post post world to deconstruct all the things but there&#x27;s a reason why Buddhism has thrived for thousands of years producing good, kind people and rebel dharmas have withered on the vine. Yes, there are exceptions but overall, it&#x27;s been wildly effective as a method for awakening that also spares others violence. That said, there are good rebel dharma people out there like Daniel Ingram who do promote ethics as an essential cornerstone of practice (and it is, try it).<p>The Twitterati of dharma are not it. They do not come bearing the gift of conscious revolution, they come bearing more poisoned seeds of self delusion because that&#x27;s what Twitter thrives on: the grand illusion of Self thrumming to the crowd of their creation.<p>In this particular article, Sasha declares that endgame meditation looks like more neuroses, pride and immoral acts and that&#x27;s the dirty secret of the community. Well, yes, when your community looks like Twitter and you think you&#x27;ve endgamed Buddhism, that is what it will look like because you are not actually attained in anything other than building shrines to self.<p>Sasha then declares at the end that one should build strong attachments to things and allow them to wound you, the exact opposite of craving and bondage, which the Buddha asks us to avoid. This person is playing games with the Buddha, playing games with dharma, and writes for a crowd that will pay them to continue playing these games.<p>My ultimate point here, which weaves in with some of the rebukes I&#x27;ve been writing lately here, is more focus needs to be placed on fundamentals and <i>really grokking them</i> with the aid of actual accomplished teachers who have spent decades endgaming your chosen practice. People of real ethical fiber. People who do not need your money to continue existing, do not want it, and have no motive to take it. People like Thannisaro Bhikku [2] or honest to God forest monks or other renunciates who demonstrate supreme compassion, generosity, and whose actions are blameless. These are people worthy of giving advice on the topic.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sashachapin.substack.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;my-recent-divorce-andor-dior-homme" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sashachapin.substack.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;my-recent-divorce-andor-d...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ṭhānissaro_Bhikkhu" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ṭhānissaro_Bhik...</a>