What do Buddhists believe?

Sources from different websites and article being edited.

Beginners to Buddhism are handed lists of doctrines -- the Four Noble Truths, the Five Skandhas, the Eightfold Path. "Believing in" doctrines about Buddhism is not the point of Buddhism because Buddhism is not a “believing in” one but one is told to understand the teachings and practice them.


What the historical Buddha taught was a method for understanding oneself and the world in a different way. The many lists of doctrines are not meant to be accepted on blind faith.

There is no point in believing in reincarnation/rebirth, for example. Rather, one practices Buddhism in order to realize a self not subject to birth and death.
Please refer to Kalama Sutta