[davidscolgan]

It feels like I have failed in every way that is possible.

I have lost my wife, my child, my parents, my grandparents, my friends, my house burned down with all of my possessions. I lost my ability to code due to burnout and had to spend several years doing nothing.

During my burnout experience I was basically forced to confront the roaring void of existence. I spent time at a monastery and contemplated the futility of it all.

And yet at the end of all of this, I considered what else is there to do with life but to begin anew? And now that I have lost everything, I am no longer naive. I know what is possible to have, and what is possible to lose, and I can act with understanding from past experience. I feel far more capable of success now that I know what it is to fail in the hardest ways I can imagine.

[Etheryte]

Sorry to hear you have suffered, happy to hear you've found peace with how life has treated you. I wouldn't say I'm a deeply spiritual person in any way, but I've seen many people around me find solace in spirituality when going through hardships. What did your path to spirituality or religion or however you'd like to call it look like? How do you look at the world now, or how would you describe what you practice?

[davidscolgan]

Perhaps the most important event of my life was discovering I have autism at age 33. Many things that didn't make sense suddenly did. I pointed my hyperfocus inward to my own mind, at first because I had lost the ability to code and make a living, and wanted to heal my "coding injuries" as I had called them. I had become an atheist at age 20 and primarily had used psychology to try and figure out what was happening.

I studied Buddhism under a mentor and realized that many of the principles applied regardless of your beliefs about cosmology. The idea that all problems humans face can be summarized as "greed, ignorance, and aversion" was a useful frame. These helped me triangulate the ultimate source of my burnout to unmet family expectations that I had for many years tried to live up to but could not. Confronting my family about these expectations and taking responsibility for my own life was absolutely key in my healing.

These days I don't exactly have a set practice but I still live with my mentors. They started a syncretic monastery that welcomes all traditions, and observing the similarities and differences between worldviews has been quite eye opening. The most valuable practice I take from all this is a honed awareness of the root causes of suffering, and I've found that once the root cause is identified, it becomes possible to release it.

[Etheryte]

This is insightful, thank you for sharing your personal life so openly. How does one go about starting to study Buddhism? I feel like it's a recurring topic that I stumble upon every now and then, but beyond reading up about it myself, it feels a bit impenetrable. I'm already familiar with the general core ideas and such, but applying them seems well out of reach.

[echelon_musk]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10188808

I would also recommend the work by some of Daniel Ingram's influences such as Mahasi Sayadaw's 'Progress of Insight' or 'Manual of Insight'.

[davidscolgan]

Seconding Daniel Ingram, my mentor says that Daniel Ingram's book "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha" is a great introduction for a developer-minded person. I haven't actually read it so I can't comment on it, but I learned from someone who gained a lot about Buddhism from that book. Also happy to chat further over email.

[i_like_pie1]

wish you peace and strength

thank you for sharing

[SnowHill9902]

Read the book of Job.