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The Buddhist concept of reincarnation differs from others in that there is no eternal " soul ", " spirit ' or self " but only a " stream of consciousness " that links life with life.

The actual process of change from one life to the next is called punarbhava ( Sanskrit ) or punabbhava ( Pāli ), literally " becoming again ", or more briefly bhava, " becoming ", and some English-speaking Buddhists prefer the term " rebirth " or " re-becoming " to render this term as they take " reincarnation " to imply a fixed entity that is reborn .< ref >" Reincarnation in Buddhism: What the Buddha Didn't Teach " By Barbara O ' Brien, About. com < sup > Popular Jain cosmology and Buddhist cosmology as well as a number of schools of Hinduism posit rebirth in many worlds and in varied forms.

In Buddhist tradition the process occurs across five or six realms of existence, including the human, any kind of animal and several types of supernatural being.

It is said in Tibetan Buddhism that it is very rare for a person to be reborn in the immediate next life as a human