Buddhists:'How can there be rebirth when there is no soul to be reborn?'?

Answer 1

Rebirth Without a Soul.
The answer to that question is Dependent Origination. Paticca-samuppada shows the empty process, empty of a soul that is, which flows within a life and overflows into another life. It also shows the forces at work in the process, which drive it this way and that, even exercising sway in a subsequent life. Dependent Origination also reveals the answer to how kamma done in a previous life can affect a person in this life.

Dependent Origination presents two sequences that generate rebirth:

delusion (avijja) + kamma the stream of consciousness beginning at rebirth (vina).
craving (tanh) + fuel (updna) existence (bhava) + rebirth into that existence (jti).
These are parallel processes. They describe the same operation viewed from two different angles. I will now combine them:

Deluded kamma and craving produce the fuel which generates existence and rebirth (into that existence), thereby giving rise to the start of the stream of consciousness that is at the heart of the new life.

It is kamma and craving, both under the sway of delusion, that is the force propelling the stream of consciousness into a new life.

~oOo~
I will now offer some similes to illustrate this operation. These similes are only approximations and, therefore, will never perfectly match Paticca-samuppda. This is because Dependent Origination is mainly a process describing the flow of the mental consciousness, whilst the similes at my disposal are from the more well known material world. Still, they should help to clarify one's understanding.

Someone goes to an airport to fly to another country. If they have enough money for the fare and they have a desire to go to a new country, then they may arrive in that land. If they have the fare but not the desire, or the desire but not the fare, or they lack both, then they will not arrive in the new country. In this simile: the person stands for the stream of consciousness; the airport stands for death; the new country stands for the next life; the fare stands for the person's accumulated kamma; and their desire to go there stands for craving. With much good kamma and a craving for happiness, or just the craving to be, the stream of consciousness that one thinks of as `me' is propelled into one's chosen next life. With much bad kamma and a craving for happiness, one cannot reach the happiness one wants, and thus one is propelled into an unsatisfactory next life. With much bad kamma and a craving for punishment, what we recognize in this life as the guilt complex, one falls into a next life of suffering. Then with much good kamma and no craving at all, one goes nowhere. Like the traveller at the airport, they have enough money to go wherever they want first-class, but the delusion has been shattered and the desire that generated all this coming-and-going is no more. They cease at the airport.

How does one seed produce a new seed? Suppose a seed is planted in a good field, it is fed by moisture carrying essential nutrients, and it grows to maturity producing another seed at its death. There is no soul or self in the seed, yet one seed has evolved into another seed following a process of cause and effect. The original seed and the new seed are completely different. Almost certainly, there isn't even one molecule of the original seed to be found in the new seed. Even the DNA, though similar, is not the same. It is an example of a well known process which spans a life, but with nothing that one can identify as an essence passing unaltered from the original seed to the new seed. Rebirth, as it were, has happened with no `seed-soul' going across. I mention this example because it is similar to a metaphor of The Buddha:

Kamma is like the field, craving like the moisture, and the stream of consciousness like the seed. When beings are blinded by delusion and fettered with craving, the stream of consciousness becomes established, and rebirth of a new seed (consciousness) takes place in the future." (paraphrased from AN 3, 76)

It is interesting to describe how a recent, real instance of kamma and craving worked together to change bhava, the kind of one's existence. In the late 1970's in Britain, many uneconomical coalmines were permanently closed. One particular disused mine was close to a heavily populated area in South Wales. When some of the poor of that area had unwanted kittens, they would cheaply dispose of them by cruelly throwing them down into the abandoned mineshaft. Several years later, some engineers entered that mine to check on its safety. They found a remarkable discovery. Some of the kittens had survived the fall and, in the space of only a few generations, had evolved into a completely new species of cat, blind in their eyes but with enormous ears. Craving and behavioural conditioning (kamma) had been the obvious driving forces that produced the mutation.

The above examples only begin to give an indication of the process that is Paticca-samuppda. Dependent Origination, after all, is mainly a process that describes the flow of mental consciousness, and this is fundamentally different from material processes. If one can imagine a beach of white sand, then the stretch looks continuous. On closer examination, though, one finds that the beach is made up of an uncountable number of small grains, each close to the next. If one looks even closer, one discovers that the grains aren't even touching, that each grain is alone. Similarly, when one's mindfulness has been empowered by jhana meditation, one may see the stream of consciousness in much the same way. Before, it looked like a continuous stretch of unbroken cognition. But now it is revealed as granular, tiny moments of consciousness, uncountable in number, close together but not touching, and each one alone. Having seen the true nature of consciousness, only then can one see how one moment of consciousness influences what follows. Kamma, like a discrete particle of behavioural conditioning, together with craving combine to make the impersonal forces that steer the journey of consciousness, like an aircraft on an automatic super-pilot. Furthermore, when the insight comes, based uniquely on the data of jhana, that the mental consciousness is independent of the body and must clearly survive the death of the body, then one sees with absolute certainty that the forces of kamma and craving that drive mental consciousness now, will continue to drive the mind through and beyond death. Rebirth and its process are seen. Paticca-samuppda is understood.

The Buddha said to Venerable Ananda at the opening of the Mahnidna Sutta (DN 15):

This Dependent Origination, Ananda, is deep and it appears deep.

In my opinion, one needs the experience of jhana to see it clearly. Nevertheless, I hope that the explanation and similes that I have given will help throw some light onto the true nature and purpose of this impersonal process that drives the mind from life to life. At least you can know that when Paticca-samuppda is fully understood, it is also clearly seen how rebirth happens without any soul.

Ajahn Brahm:http://www.bswa.org

Answer 2

The whole universe is one life. Every single thing that exists in the universe is part of one gigantic life. "Your soul" is also a precious part of this life; but it will change its form into another being.

For example, the earth came into being about 4.5 billion years ago, and it will disappear and back into gas in another 4.5 billion years. But the gas will eventually form another planet in another solar system somewhere in the universe. Every existence, be it organic or not, is part of this gigantic life of the whole universe.

The concept of reincarnation in Buddhism is this life-death cycle of every existence perfecting this whole life. Everything, be it a human, dog, cat, flower, rock, ocean, mountain, star - you name it - is organically　related as part of this one holly being. And everything is changing its form from one to another: turn, turn turn.

When you accept this whole life, you will realize that every single thing has its meaning to exist. You need every organ in your body to live. There should be no conflict among them. Is ther any conflict between your brain and heart?

You don't need to be afraid of death; you don't need to stick to your soul; because your soul is not your possession. Your soul, like the gas in the universe, will be transformed into another being as a precious part of this whole life. This way, your soul, which was actually transformed from another being long before you were born, will continue to live eternally.

Answer 3

The Buddha taught that mindfulness-i.e. consciousness survives. He didn't elaborate on the concept of souls and spirits as we in the west would define them with individual egos etc.

Answer 4

There is a soul...Your soul just goes into another vessel depending on how you lived your life before.

Answer 5

We believe that MIND goes on, and the existence of mind is created by the moment of mind that came before... and creates the mind which is perceiving this reply and this moment creates the next moment of mind... so on and so forth.

Answer 6

Boy O boy, what a good question.

I think we should start a new site to examine that one point.