The Unexpected Path: Buddhism and parenting an autistic child

To those of you who are struggling with doubt about meditation practice, if you believe that your life conditions are too intense, too chaotic for practice to bear fruit, I would like to offer some reassurance. At age three, my son was diagnosed with autism. It is distressing to see your child unable to cope with everyday situations, to see them overcome with fear and anxiety to the point of real violence, to not be able to socialise with other families in ways you’d once taken for granted, to view the future with deep uncertainty. But most of all, the diagnosis brought me face to face with my own conditioning, my own insistences, my preferences for life to unfold the way I wanted it to.… Continue reading...