With reincarnation what do buddhists say survives the body?

Answer 1

The soul, I guess.

Answer 2

There is not a simple answer to this without understanding buddhism's fundamentals. The idea is that the elements of the universe that comprise a person (or, indeed, anything) are ever changing, and death is just another change in their configuration. These elements, or skandhas, as they are called in Sanskrit, should neither be considered to be the same things that previously made up a person, nor be different--they are simply elemets of a continuous stream of energy that are reformulated, if that makes any sense.

Sanskrit terms make it very difficult to translate buddhist concepts into English, but suffice it to say that many are under the false impression that buddhists believe we die and are reborn into another type of living form. This is extremely simplistic and is NOT what buddhists mean about reincarnation. The entire process of change from one life to the next is called punarbhava (literally "becoming again". The process of the shifting skandhas is called samsara. It's complicated!

Answer 3

The postulation of any eternal, unchanging essence/soul/substance in Buddhism is a big no no. Therefore Buddhists speak in terms of causality that links one life to the next, rather than a soul. Think of one candle lighting another rather than a string of beads connected by a thread. The second flame is neither the same nor different from the first.

Answer 4

Tough question. Strictly speaking, Buddhists don't actually believe in a "Soul" so to speak, as typefied by the word "anatman" (as opposed to the "atman", the Hindu concept of a soul). Some will speak of karma, and it carrying over to the various forms of the Universe, in the cycle of samsara. Me? As a Buddhist lay person, I'd say "Dead is dead, there is no 'reincarnation' to speak of."

Answer 5

Not to split hairs, but "reincarnation" is a Hindu term; Buddhists might say "rebirth" or "future {or past} lives..." With that said, what survives the body? The answer to your question is "the mental continuum." Since all effects are dependent on concordant causes, the mental consciousness can be asserted to have been caused only by a preceding moment of consciousness, not matter {or elements: earth, air, water, fire, and un-compounded space}, and is said to be beginningless, not "not-caused" just dependent on many, many factors all coming together, moment to moment and traceable back all the way to the bardo, from where it came and was thrust-into the aggregates when the parents sperm and egg came together. It arises in dependence on the aggregates, {or collection, or heaps, or skandhas: form, feeling, perception, formation and consciousness.} The self, or "I" is not any one of these alone, and yet only exists in dependence on all of them, {and the elements} collected together and then nominally designated "this" or "that," or named, or imputed. Anyway, since in this final analysis, this self, and the mental continuum or consciousness, is devoid of any intrinsic, truly established, or independent nature - it is said to be empty (of true establishment.) Because it is a compound phenomena, likewise, it is impermanent, and because it, this mind, is devoid of mind because it is of the nature of clear light, any one of us can become liberated {buddhanature} from suffering through the abandonment of its origin which is self-grasping ignorance {and the self-cherishing which give rise to karma and the afflictions which cause cyclic existence and suffering}. What this means is we all have a tremendous opportunity that we oftentimes waste on futile preoccupation with mundane material pursuits when we have this rare and precious gem of a human existence. Because we have this buddhanature and because the afflictions like hatred, anger, and delusion are adventitious and are compound phenomena they can be eradicated, and what is already kind of omnipresent, reality, can be revealed through this new, direct kind of cognition - free of distortion. In this way, a lot of our fear can be removed, in much the same way turning on a light can remove darkness in a room. Best wishes!

Answer 6

The original Buddism of Gowthama Buddha does not believe in the existence of soul or reincarnation.Buddhism has no concept of God.It is the theory of self realisation and ultimate joy(freedom from wants-param ananda).Any body can attain this.Man is not happy,because he is having wants.If you reduce wants you can increase happiness.Zero wants ,maximum happiness.But later on it was found that a religion without God cannot exist.So they made Buddha as God.When Buddism was found growing and Hinduism getting set back,the clever Hindus made Buddha a mere incarnation of Hindu God Vishnu.That is the end of Buddhism.The present concept of Buddhism as a sub sect Hindus, thereby subscribe to incarnation etc, on the line of traditional Hindus.