Saṃsāra - Cycle of Rebirth

Cycle of Rebirth

The concept of samsara is closely associated with the belief that one continues to be born and reborn in various realms in the form of a human, animal, or other being (depending on karma). Jainism maintains that one who performs extremely evil karma can also be reborn as a plant or even as a rock, and similar tendencies can be found in Purāṇas, in the Bhagavadgītā, in the Manusmṛti and in similar texts. Nonetheless, most philosophic traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism maintain that plants and even more obviously rocks cannot be included in samsāra since they lack the possibility of experience (bhoga) and, hence, of karma.

In Buddhism, at the moment of death the consciousness (consciousness of the different senses, such as eye consciousness, ear consciousness etc.), acts as the seed for the spawning of the new consciousness in a new biological structure, conducive to the volitional (Saṅkhāras) impulses at the moment of death (which are themselves affected by previous volitional impulses). In other Indian religions, the volitional impulses accrued from the present life are transmitted to a consciousness structure popularly known as the soul, which, after an intermediate period (in Tibetan called the bardo), forms the basis for a new biological structure that will result in rebirth and a new life. This cyclical process ends in the attainment of moksha. If one lives in extremely evil ways, one may be reborn as an animal or other unfortunate being.