Many Hindus believe that when a person dies the "Atman" or what we call the soul or essence of a person goes out of the body and searches for another body in which it can be reborn (Antuna 1). In other words, the reborn being has the same personality or identity of the formerly existing person. Buddhists reject this view of reincarnation. Instead, Buddhists believe in a doctrine known as "no-self," which basically means they do not believe in a permanent or enduring personality or essence (Antuna 1). Instead, Buddhists believe our personality is continually evolving, so at each moment in time we are different person or essence.
Buddhists often refer to what happens to the personality or essence of being at death as a flame or flicker of fire. When we die that flame as it is then flickers one final time and "kindles another candle flame in another body and carries with it that causal continuity that establishes some connection between one life and the next" (Antuna 1). In this sense, there is an identity or personality that is transferred from the dead body to a living body but it is ever changing and not viewed as something of permanence to Buddhists. Ultimately, it is not the same flame in the next body and it will not be the same person in a new body. There is no permanent identity that is able to move from one moment in time to the next in the Buddhist view of reincarnation, which makes it highly distinct from the Vedanta view.
The Vedanta view of reincarnation is different from Buddhist views. Vedanta ideology of reincarnation believes in both a God and a view of the soul as "an enduring notion of consciousness" (Tripurari 1). Buddhists and the Buddhist view of reincarnation reject both of these concepts. In the Vedanta view of reincarnation, the essence of soul or the true self must be known in order to prevent it from being reborn into a new body and, therefore, suffering the pains of ex...