Buddhists view everything as a sum of parts - a car is not a car, it's a collection of wheels, engine parts, transmission parts, etc. In Buddhism, you are not "you" - you are just some organs working together. Likewise, when you sit quietly during mindfulness meditation you learn to identify sensations of pain and discomfort as things that occur outside of you, you just perceive them. In other words, there is no you, there is a sum of parts that you have traditionally perceived as you. If you decouple yourself from these sensations, you can no longer be hurt by them.

Keep in mind that Buddhism is deeply rooted in a time when the only way to avoid suffering was to ignore all desire, because it wasn't going to be fulfilled anyway. So, if you want a primer course on Buddhism, read the "4 Noble Ways" and "The Eightfold Path" (about a 30 second read for both) - while these sounds esoteric, they basically summarize Buddhism in a very clear, concise, and logical way; which is that Buddhism is nothing by asceticism and a way to let go of wordly desires and ignore the outside world, to ease suffering.

Everything else is fluff by pseudo-intellectuals who will flood below this post.

As a side note "Altered Traits" was a useless, garbage, author-self-promotion book with no actual info, thanks for nothing HN.

I can also recommend "What the Buddha Taught" by Walpola Rahula. It is from a Theravada perspective, but I think it is a good start to get to know the core of Buddhism based on the Pali cannon.

Can you break that down? I am eager to learn about Buddhism, because to me, it has some "practical" aspects, but so far every book I have read has been a 100 pages of fluff and a salient point or two.

What makes this book good?

Just to be clear, I am genuinely interested, but I want to know more as to why you are recommending it.

Since this is an introductory text, it covers things you probably already know about - four noble truths, eight fold path etc.

However, there are some practical advice which I found to be nicely explained,

- Book has a chapter on meditation and I think it does get to the point without fluff, for example. It talks about Samatha (such as focus on breath) and Vipassana meditation.

- Talks about some important sutras such as Kalama sutra which is all about how to live your life as a Buddhist as a layman (as opposed to a monk).

Cool, thanks dewaka, will look into it, though there is a good chance I am familiar with most of it; it would still be nice to have a good introductory test - I don't know of a single Buddhist book I feel comfortable recommending to others, maybe this will be it.

The state of not being a self aware conscious entity.

Are you claiming that individuality and consciousness are the same?

Define "individuality" and "consciousness" for the sake of trying to contrast them. Both seem like very vague open-ended words. Oh wait, they are, because we still can't define consciousness, so there can be no meaningful answer to your question.

no - the question was around a self-aware entity (an "I") becoming aware of its future non-existence. A conscious being without self-awareness would not be capable of considering its self no longer existing.