Question: "What is Buddhism and what do Buddhists believe?"

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In addition, several personal experiences during a four months retreat created more questions and doubts concerning Buddhism. For example, it brought out all the contradictions I stumbled over in Buddhism to the forefront when one of my Buddhist friends quoted a highly respected Lama: "Vajrayana [the Tibetan Buddhist path] is like a jump between the two World Trade Centers. If you make it to the other building--amazing! Otherwise it's a long fall down."
Buddhists do not at all soften the outlook on reincarnation. The human realm is--according to their teachings--the only realm out of six in which you can reach spiritual enlightenment. Nevertheless, "the human birth is as rare and precious as a star in the daytime sky" as every sincere Tibetan teacher will tell you. The chance of a rebirth in one of the other realms, particularly the lower realms is far, far greater. Another illustration gives an even more vivid impression of this: imagine the whole earth was covered by water. Somewhere in this vast ocean stirred up by heavy winds, is one lone turtle swimming beneath the waves. Somewhere else in this vast ocean is a ring floating on the surface, moved by the ocean's currents. The ring fits right around the neck of the turtle. The turtle comes up for air only once every hundred years. The chance of a human rebirth, Tibetans say, is equivalent to the chance of the turtle finding the ring around its neck when lifting its head out of the water! Yet this is only an illustration of the chance of human rebirth not the chance of enlightenment which is far rarer.
In essence, during this retreat I was forced to consider the severe difficulty of the Buddhist path. I also saw firsthand the helplessness and despair created in my spiritual leaders by the split in the lineage and the lack of "enlightened" solutions. My doubts about Buddhism being a path of ultimate truth started to grow. The answers the Lamas gave me in response to my questions were not enough nourishment for my inquisitive mind and all my meditation practices just could not erase them either. Besides that, I felt trapped in a hopeless attempt "to reach the other building", facing "the long fall down", realizing that if my own spiritual leaders as "enlightened beings" in their 12th or 14th consciously chosen reincarnation were not able to find all the answers and clues, I as an ordinary being certainly had even much less of a chance.
Looking at myself with greater honesty, I saw plenty of weaknesses in my own heart and mind. As much as Buddhists rejected the existence of a Creator God, memories of my earlier Christian teachings started to come alive again. If I indeed wanted to find ultimate truth; as I did, I had to consider there may be a permanent factor behind all the obvious impermanence of this world and thus consider the possibility of God's existence.
I started to cry out to Him, to plead and wrestle with Him through numerous prayers. I was almost shockingly surprised when I found them heard and answered, because if this holy God did exist indeed, I knew my shortcomings before Him would be a problem.
Slowly, I began to realize why the Christian message was called the gospel. If such a God existed, it was good news indeed to be able to have your sins forgiven. I cannot even begin to describe the level of my shame before God when--after months of research--I finally realized the Jesus Christ surrendered to that terrifying death on the cross as an atonement for my and ALL of our sins. Simultaneously, my heart was overwhelmed with the deepest joy by the experience of his incredible mercy and forgiveness, and I was even more delighted by the historical evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ which gives all of us solid hope for eternal life.
I am now fully convinced that Jesus' death on the cross is the single most transforming spiritual event in the history of mankind. More than anybody else, C. S. Lewis helped me to understand this, looking at it from kind of a Buddhist perspective by evaluating the karmic merit of the Jewish people. He explains in Mere Christianity that the constant failure in perfect obedience by God's chosen people brought the "karmic scales" so hopelessly out of balance that only the spiritual weight of sacrificing himself through a human incarnation and a truly sacrificial death could create balance again and serve as a fundamental hope and inspiration for the redemption of our sins and failures. By the measurement of God's law, the future of mankind was hopelessly lost in sin, but by the gift of His grace--and only by that--we all receive a chance to be saved from final fatal judgement. So God actually did crucify His own Son to spare us the divine judgement due to our sin. But faith in Jesus we could be forgiven and the resurrection of Christ proved it. Suddenly the words from the Gospel of John (Chapter 3, verse 16) became transparent and alive to me in all their truthful, joyous glory: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." In return, all God expects from us is to accept this and acknowledge Jesus' sacrifice with gratitude while living up to Jesus' level of obedience and surrender the best we can.
My Buddhist friends were puzzled, amused, amazed, partly confused and mostly convinced that I had become deceived in a spiritual mind trap. Buddhists generally do not understand Christianity, as I can well remember. That response was hard to face and still is difficult. Nevertheless, the gift of inner joy that comes with the Christian faith is worth all the price this world extracts. The assurance of eternal life I have through faith in Jesus is indisputably more precious than anything I have ever found in Buddhism, because Jesus Christ is "the true light that gives light to every man" (John 1:9).
For thirty-three years of my life I lived without God. Whatever may happen in the future, I never want to be without Him again. As Jesus once told his disciples, "I am the resurrection and the life: he who believes in me shall live even if he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die" (John 11:25-26) and "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete" (John 15:11), because, as Lewis once wrote, "joy is the serious business of heaven."

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Buddhism vs Christianity chart

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Buddhism | Christianity
Seeks release from suffering | Seeks knowledge of God and His glory
"Unreal" (impermanent) world | Real world
Nihilistic, pessimistic outlook | Hopeful, optimistic outlook
No God or Savior exists. | One God, one Savior
Apologetic centered in subjective experience | Apologetic centered objective history
Trusts self | Trusts God
Morality self-derived | Morality based on the infinitely holy character of God
Devalues man (e.g., man is a bundle of flux; the body is evil, the mind is deceptive) |Dignifies man (e.g., man is made in God's own image; the believer's body is the temple of the Holy Spirit; the mind is good and glorifies God)
Activity and individual life are "evil" and hamper salvation | Activity and individual life are good and glorify God
Atheistic/polytheistic | Theistic
Impersonal ultimate reality | Personal ultimate reality
Often anti-social | Responsible social action
Enlightened by works | Salvation by grace
Mysticism and the occult are spiritual activities | Mysticism and the occult are rejected as evil and as opposed to God
The afterlife constitutes an impersonal, uncertain nirvana | The afterlife is clearly delineated and involves personal immortality
Spiritual truth is discovered by disciplined effort | Spiritual truth is revealed by God

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Buddha | Jesus
Buddha is dead.
In many ways the Buddha is a mystery (no contemporary biographies exist) "apart from the legends we know very little about the circumstances of his life."[1] | Jesus was a historic person of whom four reliable, early biographies were penned. "It is a historic fact that Jesus Christ lived and taught what the New Testament says He taught."[2]
Teachings uncertain | Teachings certain
Buddha was only a man: "Notwithstanding his own objectivity toward himself, there was constant pressure during his lifetime to turn him into a god. He rebuffed all these categorically, insisting that he was human in every respect. He made no attempt to conceal his temptations and weaknesses, how difficult it had been to attain enlightenment, how narrow the margin by which he had won through, how fallible he still remained."[3] | Jesus is incarnate God: "I am the light of the world"; "I am the way, the truth and the Life"; "He who believes in Me will never die"; "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." "I and the Father are One." "You believe in God, Believe also in Me." "All that the Father has is Mine." "All power and authority in heaven and earth have been given to Me." -- Jesus
Non-theistic worldview | Theistic worldview
A way-shower; Buddha as a person is unnecessary for achieving enlightenment. | The Savior; salvation is impossible apart from the Person of Jesus.
Encouraged men to follow a philosophy | Encouraged men to follow Him
Never appealed to faith | Stressed the importance of faith in God and Himself (Jn. 17:3)
Rejected God | Called God His own Father
Undogmatic | Dogmatic
Offered a way | Taught He was the only way between the temporal and the eternal
Notes
 David-Neel, p. 15.

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 Norman Geisler, A Popular Survey of the Old Testament (Chicaco, IL: Moody Press, 1978), p. 11.
 Smith, The Religions of Man, p. 99.

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Buddhist Enlightenment | Christian Salvation
Man's nature remains fundamentally unchanged; the individual Buddhist accomplishes "enlightenment" but this is only a new perspective on life undergirded by carefully cultivated altered states of consciousness (the experience of "nirvana" in meditation) | Man's nature is changed forever. This is accomplished wholly by God and constitutes an inner change of one's nature (regeneration) a new legal standing before God (justification) and, logically, a corresponding "outer" transformation (sanctification)
Eradicates "ignorance" of the truths of Buddhism and ostensibly, in the end, suffering | Eradicates sin
History is irrelevant; salvation is experientially based and possible through mysticism. Inner experience supplants historical concerns. The person of Buddha irrelevant to process of enlightenment | Historically based; salvation is objectively based and impossible apart from the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth
The believer is saved from life; sin is not forgiven | The believer is saved from divine judgment; all his sins are forgiven
Humanistic: man instituted | Theological: God instituted
Escapist (salvation from the world) | Realist (salvation of the world, i.e., of all believers)
One cannot be reconciled to an impersonal nirvana, one can only "realize" it or "achieve" it; technically, one cannot even experience it. | Reconciliation to God
Eternal existence allegedly constitutes an ineffable existence somewhere in between (i.e., not comprising either) total annihilation or personal immortality | Eternal life constitutes personal immortality and fellowship with a loving God
Derives from a finite source of change utilizing the power of self-perfection | Derives from an infinite source of change utilizing the power of divine grace

Ultimate Reality is the experience of emptiness or ineffable impersonal "existence." | Ultimate Reality is the infinite personal triune God
Faith is denied or placed in Buddhist gods plus works | Based on faith in Christ alone apart from works

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Buddhism Christianity
Those who, relying upon themselves only, shall not look for assistance to any one besides themselves, it is they who shall reach the topmost height.[1] | "Thus says the Lord, 'Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord'" (Jeremiah 17:5).
By this ye shall know that a man is not my disciple--that he tries to work a miracle. | "But many of the multitude believed in Him; and they were saying, 'When the Christ shall come, He will not perform more signs than those which this man has, will He?'" (John 7:31).
"One thing I teach," said Buddha: "suffering and the end of suffering....It is just ill and the ceasing of ill that I proclaim." | "But to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation. Therefore, let those also who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right" (1 Peter 4:13, 19).
The self we think to be true and important is pure illusion, and a lie that is the cause of a large proportion of human suffering. | "And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." "Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being" (Genesis 1:27; 2:7).
Perhaps the greatest difference between Buddhism and Christianity is that Buddhism very explicitly does not require an act of faith. | "And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him" (Hebrews 11:6).
There is no permanent self in Buddhism. In fact, nothing is permanent | "Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and Thy dominion endures throughout all generations." "But Thou, O Lord, dost abide forever" (Psalm 145:13; 102:12a)
Do not believe in that which you have yourselves imagined, thinking that a god has inspired it | "All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
According to Buddhism the universe evolved, but it did not evolve out of nothingness; it evolved out of the dispersed matter of a previous universe, and when this universe is dissolved, its dispersed matter--or, its residual energy which is continually renewing itself--will in time give rise to another universe in the same way. The process is therefore cyclical and continuous. The universe is composed of millions of millions of world-systems like our solar system, each with its various planes of existence." | "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." "By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible" (Genesis 1:1; Hebrews 11:3).
Notes
 Smith, p. 107, quoting E.A. Burt (ed.), The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha (NY: Mentor, 1955), p. 50.
 Smith, p. 108.
 Woodward (tr.), p. XXI.
 Ibid., p. 109.
 Walt Anderson, p. 26.
 Ibid., p. 32.
 David-Neel, p. 123.
 Neill, p. 121, citing Maha Thera U Tittila in The Path of the Buddha (ed.), K.W. Morgan, (1956), pp. 77-78.