Rebirth

Rebirth (punabbhava) means that when a being dies, the stream of craving-driven experience does not simply end but continues into a new life, shaped by past intentional actions (kamma). In early Buddhism it isn't a fixed soul that travels but an ongoing process — like one candle's flame lighting another, connected yet not identical. It matters because it frames the whole path: the Buddha taught that awakening (nibbāna) is the end of this repeated becoming, freeing us from endless rounds of birth, aging, and death.