REBIRTH, NIRVANA AND NO-SOUL IN BUDDHISM:

The whole teaching of Buddha is mainly dependent on the four noble truths. The doctrine of Dependent Origination, or Pratityasamutpada, which is the second noble truth of Buddhism, is of great importance. The doctrine of impermanence or the doctrine of pratityasamutpada is related to the concept of no-soul, rebirth, and Nirvana. Pratityasamutpada means that everything in the world is relative, conditional, dependent, and subject to birth and death, and it is, therefore, impermanent. Buddha gave importance only to how to remove suffering from our lives. Therefore, his main aim was to focus the attention of the common people on how they could come out of these sufferings. Human beings suffer in this world because of the lack of actual understanding of the everchanging nature of the world and its objects or ignorance. The doctrine of no-soul, rebirth, and Nirvana are all based on the doctrine of dependent origination or pratityasamutpada. Generally, we believe that the soul is a permanent substance, and it is not like a material body that changes continuously. But in this world, we have seen nothing permanent. Therefore, to accept the existence of a permanent self is nothing but an illusion for Buddha. Since everything is impermanent, there cannot be any permanent self, which is believed by the common people. For Buddha, we need to focus on the reasons for which we are suffering in this world and how we can come out of it. We should not give much importance to what always escapes from us. Since everything is relative and conditional, we cannot know the existence of anything as a permanent element. But if there is no permanent soul, how can rebirth be possible?