Theravada Concepts
In his struggle to find support for a belief in immortality, the Westerner in confusion rejects the Theravada or Southern Buddhist concept of rebirth without a soul; little knowing that it is the only rational solution to the problem. F.L. Woodward says in the commentary to his translation of Dhammapada:
"The Southern version, briefly, is that at death a man’s tendencies and traits of character are (by a chain reaction of cause and effect) reborn in some other person or individual, but without any connecting link of continuing egoity. The latter is the view adopted by Edmond Holmes: "The question which we have to ask ourselves with regard to the Buddhist conception is a simple one: “Is the identity between me and the inheritor of my Karma. as real as the identity between the me of today and the me 20 years hence? ...” If it is not as real, the doctrine of re- incarnation is pure nonsense. "Holmes continues, showing that the doctrine of Karma, the key teaching of Buddhism, becomes almost senseless when divorced from the idea of a re-incarnating ego."
Dhammapada - F. L. Woodward, Cunningham Press L.A. 1955)
The problem of the Westerner here is the challenge by science of his belief in an immortal soul which leaves an emotional but irrational desire for a concept of continuity after death. In this situation, the Theravada position would be the real solution to his problem; instead of an emotional plunge into an irrational defence of the “soul.” Only the Theravada position provides a rational answer to the challenge of science, in showing that the continuity of life after death is possible without an everlasting soul.