I practiced zen for a while and had the exact same experience. I had real-life problems that were causing me psychological distress and was using buddhism to avoid having to address those issues. I figured none of it mattered anyway since life is dukkha and trying to improve my life wouldn't remove the craving that is the fundamental cause of dukkha. So I might as well just meditate as much as I could and hope for enlightenment. I wouldn't blame buddhism entirely for my personal failings, but buddhism certainly didn't help.
I've come to the conclusion after a lot of reading, practice, and contemplation that there is NO form of buddhism that makes any sense to engage with unless you believe in rebirth. The point of buddhism is to escape rebirth, not achieve some psychological state like happiness or well-being. If you're expecting the later out of buddhism, you're probably better off putting your energy into more "worldly" endeavors. I've been much happier since I stopped meditating and started using that time to focus on friends, hobbies, career and dating.
Traditional buddhists would probably facepalm at this and say something like "no duh, rebirth is buddhism 101". But a lot of American buddhist traditions present rebirth as an optional belief which is nonessential to buddhist practice. I even watched an American zen teacher call rebirth "bullshit" publicly in a talk once.
What's sad to me is that therapists have started recommending meditation as some universal good, despite the research on it still being pretty young. It seems they've been influenced by the American buddhist/mindfulness movement and are being rather uncritical. I'm sure small amounts of meditation can help some people with stress and anxiety, but it shouldn't be viewed as something to automatically recommend to every patient like sleep and exercise.
I had almost the exact same experience. I was very into Buddhism for a time, to the point of seriously considering becoming a monk. I ultimately left the faith because I realized a) I was using it as an excuse to avoid facing my demons and b) rebirth underpins the entire philosophy. If you don't believe in rebirth, the whole thing falls apart.
I've come to the conclusion after a lot of reading, practice, and contemplation that there is NO form of buddhism that makes any sense to engage with unless you believe in rebirth. The point of buddhism is to escape rebirth, not achieve some psychological state like happiness or well-being. If you're expecting the later out of buddhism, you're probably better off putting your energy into more "worldly" endeavors. I've been much happier since I stopped meditating and started using that time to focus on friends, hobbies, career and dating.
Traditional buddhists would probably facepalm at this and say something like "no duh, rebirth is buddhism 101". But a lot of American buddhist traditions present rebirth as an optional belief which is nonessential to buddhist practice. I even watched an American zen teacher call rebirth "bullshit" publicly in a talk once.
What's sad to me is that therapists have started recommending meditation as some universal good, despite the research on it still being pretty young. It seems they've been influenced by the American buddhist/mindfulness movement and are being rather uncritical. I'm sure small amounts of meditation can help some people with stress and anxiety, but it shouldn't be viewed as something to automatically recommend to every patient like sleep and exercise.