If the world were created by a god then we’d be helpless. It would not be within our power to do much about our own situation. However, some deity has not created the world, so we have the power to do something about our situation. That is because the situation we are in is the fruition of our own actions; our actions are a cause that has created this particular effect. Therefore it is within our power to abandon the causes of suffering and, likewise, to prevent the experience of suffering. In that same way, it is within our power to do what we want to do. If we want to achieve the higher realms of existence or the state of having crossed beyond all suffering, then we simply begin to engage in the causes that lead to those very realms.
— Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche
Xanadu Xero says
Yes! In fact, duh… but we’re NOT doing it. All we need to do is organize and agree and we don’t and we won’t (because the best predictor of the future is the past and we never have.) Our ME NOT YOU primal hard-wiring has not evolved yet, and I don’t think it will before we off ourselves.