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I've always been perplexed by something. If there's no soul or self in Buddhism, then who or what reincarnates? This has always been a puzzling question. I found some good videos today suggested by YouTube AI that addresses that. They are very interesting. See below. Apparently, the self is like a stream of consciousness. Buddha never said that there's no self, only that there's no permanent self, because the self is ever changing.






Video Description:

If There Is No Self, Then Who or What is Being Reborn?
The Buddha never said that there is no self. He never said that there is a self. The whole question of whether or not the self exists was one he put aside.

There’s a common misconception that the Buddha started with the idea that there was no self and, in the context of no self, taught the doctrine of kamma, which makes no sense: If there’s no self, nobody does the kamma and nobody receives the results, so actions and their results wouldn’t matter, because there’s no one choosing to act, and no one to suffer the results. But that’s putting the context backwards. Actually, the Buddha started with the reality of kamma, and then viewed ideas of “self” and “not-self” as types of kamma within that context. This means that he focused on seeing the way we define our sense of self as an action. Then the question becomes, when is the act of identifying things as your self a skillful action, and when is it not? When is the act of identifying things as not-self a skillful action, and when is it not? When a healthy sense of self is needed to be responsible, self-reliant, and heedful of the future, it’s a skillful action. When the perception of not-self helps you not to identify with desires that would lead to harm, it’s a skillful action.

In other words, both “self” and “not-self” are strategies for achieving happiness. They should be used—and mastered—as needed for the sake of true happiness, and abandoned when no longer needed. So instead of getting involved in the tangle of trying to define what a self is and whether it exists, the Buddha advised treating “self” and “not-self” as processes to be mastered, as tools.

Similarly with rebirth: He avoided talking about what gets reborn and instead focused on how it happens, as a process. Because the process is a type of kamma, it’s something you’re responsible for, and it’s also a skill you can master: either with relative skill, reaching a comfortable rebirth, or with consummate skill, learning how not to be reborn at all.

@Lucas88

Commented on the video above. He said I could post it. See below.

Lucas88:

Hey Winston, today I checked out the forum and saw your post on what reincarnates according to Buddhism if there is no soul.

I'm actually reading another book on Mahayana Buddhism by Kalu Rinpoche and he succinctly explains Buddhism's view on the process of rebirth.

According to Mahayana Buddhism, mind alone exists, while everything else is simply an illusion created by both personal and collective karma.

After physical death, our mind continues in the Bardo state and then is shaped by its own karma, causing it to take a particular form and once again cling to the sensations of the physical world, which ultimately causes it to take rebirth therein.

Many Westerners misunderstood the Buddhist term _anatta_ or non-self. It doesn't mean that there isn't an entity that transmigrates from one lifetime to another, but rather that there is no stable or unchanging self since our being is constantly in a process of transformation due to the effects of karma.

In fact, the Buddhist _anatta_ doctrine was conceived in response to the Hindu doctrine of a permanent and unchanging self or _ātman_ beyond all conditioned reality. On the other hand, I don't think that the Buddhist doctrine of _anatta_ even contradicts the Western conception of the soul since most spiritual people in the West view the soul as something that changes or evolves anyway.

Kalu Rinpoche also gives a description of Nirvana. He says that it consists of a state of pure primordial mind in which one is conscious and experiences unbound bliss without any of the sensations of Samsara for many kalpas, until (in the Mahayana view) one receives a ray of light from Buddha and then embarks upon a mission to teach suffering beings the Dharma for their liberation. Nirvana isn't a state of nonexistence like some people assume.