Often samsara (‘constant flow’) is translated as ‘transmigration of soul,’ but that is a very misleading translation, for the idea is not that a soul lives after the death of the body and moves into another body. Samsara means the creation of a new life by the influence of the actions of the former living being. In the first place, Buddhism denies the existence of the soul. Life is like the waves on water; the vibration of one particle causes the vibration of the next particle and thus the waves are transmitted a long distance. One wave is one life, and the series of lives is samsara. In Buddhism the series of lives do not go on infinitely as in a straight line. They turn in a circle and repeat the circle over and over again. The Wheel of Life is a small circle of one life, while the great circle (the series of the Wheel of Life) is samsara.

Since this self-creation is regulated by the actions of the individual being, it does not depend upon the authority of another—for instance, God. Nor is there any confusion among the action-influence of different individuals. ‘Self-acted, self-rewarded,’ ‘For a good cause, a good result; for an evil cause, an evil result,’—these are the rules.