I've been a sort of undisclosed Buddhist for some years now. I had read things here and there, and the material really appealed to me. The tipping point was reading The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. I read that one dozens of times, but even after that I still wasn't all that serious about it. Back in 2022 I decided to really dig in and read the whole Sutta Pitaka. It was quite a transformative experience. I felt I had found a religion that was truly serious about solving the problem of human existence, and I mostly agree with how it goes about it. The fact that I managed to go through that very voluminous amount of reading material also linked Buddhism to some sort of accomplishment in my brain. I also found original Buddhism much clearer and less hermetic than the way it later developed in East Asia and that helped quite a lot.
Buddhism provides an ethical foundation that I feel quite safe using for everything, even if I don't see eye to eye with its metaphysical premises. Its more esoteric assumptions don't really hinder its practical aspects. In time, I became more familiar with its cultural baggage and its Indian roots, and I've actually grown fond of them in many ways.
I don't know if you're familiar with the Mahasatipatthana sutta, it's one of my favorites. Especially the charnel ground contemplations.
https://suttacentral.net/mn10/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none¬es=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin