The doctrine of reincarnation is an unavoidable part of Indian religious thought, it really is the starting point of any further reflection. All the goals that religions seek are related in one way or another to this doctrine.
Hindu religion view reincarnation in a certain way. When a person dies, the Atman, the essence of that person, goes out of the body that died and looks for another body to be reborn in. The Atman could be what we call in the West the soul. It is the real identity of that person that is carried from one life to the next.
Buddhists reject the idea of Atman. They have a very different idea. They believe in the doctrine of no-self. What is this? They believe that nothing has a permanent identity. Nothing has a permanent identity that endures from one moment to the next. Our personality is constantly changing, is evolving all the time. In big ways, in subtle ways, it is constantly moving. There isn't an Atman that survives those changes, every minute we are a different person.
If this is true, what is that is reborn when we die? Hindus believe that the Atman is what is reborn in a new body. How do we know that "I" will be reborn in another body?
Let's use a metaphor Buddhist often use to explain their theory of personality. They compare the personality to a flame of fire. It is a fire that we fuel by all the Karma that we produce, all the actions that we perform to achieve a certain goal or to avoid a certain state. All that karma is like throwing logs on a great fire. And it burns constantly, changing from one moment to the next.
When death occurs, the previous physical body disintegrates, and the last moment of consciousness, like the last flicker in a candle flame, sets another candle flame in motion. It kindles another candle flame in another body and carries with it that causal continuity that establishes some connection between one life and the next. Obviously, Buddhists would like to assert some kind of identity from one moment to the next, but it shouldn't be an identity that ties them down too much. It shouldn't assert any kind of permanence. Because this permanence dissolves as the personality changes.
When we say that it is the same flame what we really mean is that there is a causal connection that links the flames. It is not identical, the gases themselves burn, something has changed.
Ultimately speaking, it is not the same flame. And I am not the same person. I have no identity that endures from one life to the next. The ultimate Buddhist claim about the nature of the self is that it is transient and constantly changeable. This is the fundamental Buddhist insight about the nature of the world. There is no permanent identity that moves from one moment to the next.
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The Teachings of the Buddha - Learn more about Buddhist teachings and beliefs.
