Why Practice Buddhism?

When we take away all beliefs and mental fabrications, and develop some experience with what remains (e.g. near death experiences, extensive meditation), the heart of Buddhist teachings either A) most directly maps to reality or B) can be seen as practically preparing the mind for non-conceptual truth.

It's possible for people who have meditated a lot, or died, or taken lots of psychedelics to talk about their direct experiences—but relying on a centuries-old tradition completely takes egocentric fabrication and distortion out of the picture. Buddhism has been washed and tumbled and validated again and again in the river of time.