Life after death: What is the Difference between Reincarnation and Rebirth?
According to Buddhism, the individual is a oneness of body and mind.
According to Hinduism , the individual is a oneness of body and soul.
The view of the oneness of body & mind - leads to the Buddhist concept of Rebirth.
The view of the oneness of body & soul - leads to the Hindu concept of Reincarnation.
Why does Buddhism deny the concept of “soul”?
The Buddhist Law of Impermanence rejects the view of fixed or unchanging state, whether mental or physical. Life is dynamic, the self is ever developing and changing.
On the other hand, the concept of “soul” implies something spiritually fixed. We cannot change (or replace) a soul by another one. This means that if someone has a ‘troubled soul’, then their destiny becomes fixed at that state. The concept of soul that one cannot change becomes a mental prison.
On the other hand - while one cannot create or change one’s soul - one can create own actions - and thus one creates own Karma. Karma is the mental energy, driven by our motivations and tendencies, which we are able to change through dedicated actions of transformation.
In a discussion about this subject, Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda explains that :
”Buddhism does not accept the immortality of soul or the idea that the body
is a vessel for the soul, and that after death, the soul departs from the body,
and moves to another body”.(Ikeda/Tehranian:Global Civilisation, p.120).
The concept of reincarnation (implying that the same soul acquiring different body at each lifetime) - matches the Hindu discriminatory belief in the caste system, which teaches that one’s birth in a certain class of society is a repetition of a previous existence of the same social/spiritual class:
“If taken literally, the reincarnation myth can lead to the legitimisation of rigid caste systems
and gross social injustice”, an observation D.Ikeda agrees with. (Global Civilisation, p.120).
Where does the idea of reincarnation of a “permanent soul” come from?
Most Buddhist schools consider the concept of reincarnation as a human expression of a futile desire for the wish of immortality of the ego-self:
“The function that leads us to believe in a permanent self is called the [Mano] consciousness…operating in the name of self-preservation and expansion.
It seems to correspond to the Western idea of the ego.” (Ikeda :Unlocking the Mysteries of Birth and death, p.156.
Reincarnation is a concept, which leads its believer to become heavily influenced by speculations about past life of a person who vanished forever, and confines one to unverifiable stories about previous existence.
Buddhism teaches that upon death, the body and consciousness of a past person disintegrate and vanish forever, however, the effects of actions and tendencies behind past actions - or Karma - do not vanish. Karma is a mental energy that becomes frozen as a potential energy in the field of death.
In the field of death, with no body to operate - Karma becomes inactive, a mere potential energy (created by past motivations and tendencies). Upon matching conditions of parents-to-be, this potential energy of karma gets attracted at conception, becoming the field of tendencies and motivations in the subconsciousness of the newborn.
Reincarnation is a Hindu belief in the transmigration of the soul of a person after death to another body, implying maintaining a fixed personal or spiritual identity.
Rebirth, is the Buddhist belief in the continuity of Karmic tendencies of past actions - into a new journey of life at Rebirth, implying the capacity for change and starting anew.