I agree with you 100%.
I also have a worldview that is slightly different, in that the animal we are incarnate into has it’s own mind and we are sort of possessing it, which solves the problem of how can “you’re an incarnate higher being that’s immortal” work alongside “consciousness is biological”, and I think it’s both…
But then I see this nihilism as hypocritical for a system that claims to be compassionate - if we are riding an animal as a symbiotic, or “aggregate” being as I call it (closer to the Norse model) then it’s not compassionate to the animal we incarnated into to deny it it’s mind (the ego) or attempt to crush and defeat it. Better to work WITH it as we are designed to do, teach it, help it become sovereign as we are.
So in my mind Dharma Philosophy fundamentally fails us as human beings and higher beings, by sabotaging the entire point of incarnating in the first place, which was to experience being human but also possibly to help bring new enlightened beings into immortal, sovereign existence.
It has a vibe, to me, of “Oh fuck I hate this get me out of here” and is kind of suicidal really, as rejoining with source destroys you as an individuated spirit. That resonates for me so I sympathise with the “life is suffering”, but it’s cope. It’s not supposed to be suffering it’s supposed to be experience imo, and the suffering part is a cultural issue from a lot of people not working with or understanding their animals properly, collectively creating shitty, fear-based, collectively self-defeating societies as a result.
However Tantra seems to be more about working with the animals energy system and I wonder if raising kundalini isn’t how we get our animal to become like us, immortal, but I haven’t formed a clear position of that yet, having not raised my kundalini myself to meditate on it.