If there is no self or soul, what is it that reincarnates?
Soyanata subba we kiwwa wage mata Lord Buddhage answer eka habba una but it's very difficult to understand (b'coz of our idea of self) but Some logic is there
we are living in an illusionary world so diffcult to understand the true nature I think wht lord buddha said might just like my oneness concept
if you find more explaination or any article pls let me knw (Much prefer if you can quotes from Lord Buddha)
------------- Here is the article --------------------------------
The Buddha taught a concept of rebirth that was distinct from that of any Indian teacher contemporary with him. This concept was consistent with the common notion of a sequence of related lives stretching over a very long time, but was constrained by two core Buddhist concepts: anatta, that there is no irreducible atman or "self" tying these lives together; and anicca, that all compounded things are subject to dissolution, including all the components of the human person and personality. At the death of one personality, a new one comes into being, much as the flame of a dying candle can serve to light the flame of another.
Since according to Buddhism there is no permanent and unchanging self (identify) there can be no transmigration in the strict sense. However, the Buddha himself referred to his past-lives. Buddhism teaches that what is reborn is not the person but that one moment gives rise to another and that that momentum continues, even after death. It is a more subtle concept than the usual notion of reincarnation, reflecting the sophisticated Buddhist concept of personality existing (even within one's lifetime) without a "soul".
Buddhism never rejected samsara, the process of rebirth, but suggests that it occurs across six realms of beings. It is actually said to be very rare for a person to be reborn in the immediate next life as a human.
However, Tibetan Buddhists do believe that a new-born child may be the rebirth of some important departed lama.
The Buddha has this to say on rebirth. Kutadanta continued:
"Thou believest, O Master, that beings are reborn; that they migrate in the evolution of life; and that subject to the law of karma we must reap what we sow. Yet thou teachest the non-existence of the soul! Thy disciples praise utter self-extinction as the highest bliss of Nirvana. If I am merely a combination of the sankharas, my existence will cease when I die. If I am merely a compound of sensations and ideas and desires, whither can I go at the dissolution of the body?"
Said the Blessed One: "O Brahman, thou art religious and earnest. Thou art seriously concerned about thy soul. Yet is thy work in vain because thou art lacking in the one thing that is needful." (matama kiwwa wage)
"There is rebirth of character, but no transmigration of a self. Thy thought-forms reappear, but there is no egoentity transferred. The stanza uttered by a teacher is reborn in the scholar who repeats the word."
Buddhism denies the reality of a permanent self, together with all things pertaining to the phenomenal world. The appearance of human existence is generated by a mere heap of five aggregates (skandha), which suffer from constant becoming and have a functional cause-effect relation:
1. the body (material form and senses),
2. sensation (product of the senses), 3. perception (built on sensation), 4. mental activity 5. consciousness.
All five elements, as well as the whole assembly they construct, are impermanent (anitya), undergo constant transformation and have no abiding principle or self.
Man usually thinks that he has a self because of consciousness. But being itself in a constant process of becoming and change, consciousness cannot be identified with a self that is supposed to be permanent. Beyond the five aggregates nothing else can be found in man.
However, something has to reincarnate, following the dictates of karma. When asked about the differences between people in the matters of life span, illnesses, wealth, etc., the Buddha taught:
Men have, O young man, deeds as their very own, they are inheritors of deeds, deeds are their matrix, deeds are their kith and kin, and deeds are their support. It is deeds that classify men into high or low status. - (Majjhima Nikaya 3,202).
If there is no real self, who inherits the deeds and reincarnates?
Buddha answered that only karma is passing from one life to another, using the illustration of the light of a candle, which is derived from other candle without having a substance of its own. In the same manner there is rebirth without the transfer of a self from one body to another. The only link from one life to the next is of a causal nature. This is without doubt the weirdest definition of reincarnation ever stated. In the Garland Sutra (10) we read:
According to what deeds are done
Do their resulting consequences come to be;
Yet the doer has no existence:
This is the Buddha¹s teaching.
The Yogachara and Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism) schools of Mahayana Buddhism consider that there actually is an entity that reincarnates, namely consciousness (one of the five aggregates), thus having the same function as the atman of Vedanta. The Tibetan Book of the Dead describes in detail the alleged experiences one has in the intermediary state between two incarnations, suggesting that the deceased keeps some personal attributes. Although it is not clear what actually survives after death in this case, there is mentioned a mental body that cannot be injured by the visions experienced by the deceased:
When it happens that such a vision arises, do not be afraid! Do not feel terror! You have a mental body made of instincts; even if it is killed or dismembered, it cannot die! Since in fact you are a natural form of voidness, anger at being injured is unnecessary! The Yama Lords of Death are but arisen from the natural energy of your own awareness and really lack all substantiality. Voidness cannot injure voidness! (Tibetan Book of the Dead, 12)
Whatever the condition of the deceased after death might be, any hypothetical personal nucleus vanishes right before birth, so there can be no psycho-mental element transmitted from one life to another. The newborn person doesn¹t remember anything from previous lives or trips into the realm of intermediary state (bardo).
Finally I found it
