In traditional Indian thought, the soul, or atman, is an eternally existing spiritual substance or being and the abiding self that moves from one body to the next at rebirth. The Buddha rejected this concept. He taught that everything is impermanent (anicca), and this includes everything that we associate with being human: sensations, feelings, thoughts and consciousness. This is the doctrine of anatta, "no-soul," a central concept of Buddhism.
Human existence, in the Buddha's view, is nothing more than a composite of five aggregates (khandas):
- Physical forms (rupa)
- Feelings or sensations (vedana)
- Ideations (sanna)
- Mental formations or dispositions (sankhara)
- Consciousness (vinnana)
These khandas come together at birth to form a human person. A person is a "self" in that he or she is a true subject of moral action and karmic accumulation, but not in the sense that he or she has an enduring or unchanging soul.