karmic seeds

No, Buddhists do not believe in the existence of an eternal, unchanging soul.   Someone who believes in the reality of an eternal soul is not truly a Buddhist, but rather an outer-path adherent maintaining the existence of the self (shenwo waidao). Most people except materialists believe that everyone has an eternal, immutable soul.   In America and Europe, the recently popular Theosophical Society also investigates the soul. Such soul-belief is also more or less prevalent in Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Daoism. These religions claim that when one dies, one will be judged for his good or bad deeds by God or King Yama, and will be sent to heaven or hell based on his behavior. Belief in the soul is even more deeply rooted in popular Chinese culture. There is a grossly wrong belief that upon one's death one's soul becomes a ghost. “Soul” and “ghost” are inseparably entangled in Chinese folklore. More ridiculously, because some ghosts possess minor supernormal powers, some people think the soul is composed of three distinct “cloudsouls” (hun) and seven distinct “whitesouls” (po).   Actually, though, ghosts just constitute one of the six destinies in samsāra, as do humans. And just like humans, ghosts are born and also die. (Humans are born from a womb, whereas ghosts come to existence through spontaneous birth.) As discussed before, when someone dies, she does not automatically become a ghost. There are many ideas about the soul (linghun) in Chinese folk belief. The soul is often conceived as bridging one life and the next. In this view, “birth” occurs when the soul enters an embryo, and “death” occurs when the soul leaves behind a corporeal body. So the body and soul are analogous to a house and its owner: when the house gets old, the owner moves to a new one. The houses can be changed frequently, but the person living in them is the same. Put differently, a person