Jesus and Buddha both had dramatic experiences that transformed them into teachers and eventually led the founding of religious traditions. Both became teachers of an enlightened wisdom. Jesus became a wisdom teacher and social prophet, while Buddha's teaching became individualistic. This difference is emphasis provides the background for the conflicting views on the soul, literal death, resurrection and afterlife.
             The basic doctrines of Buddhism include the "four noble truths" and the "eightfold path." The central Buddhist teaching of anatman (non-self) asserts that in the five aggregates rupa (material existence), venda (sensations), samjna (perceptions), samskara (psychic constructs, and vijnana (consciousness) no permanent self or soul can be found. Buddhism asserts that all events or phenomena are the result of interrelation of cause and condition. This interrelation initiates a cycle of decay and cessation called dependent origination. The links that have a bearing on this cycle are: ignorance, predisposition, consciousness, name-form, the senses, contact, craving, grasping, becoming, birth, old age, and death which returns to ignorance. Buddhism supports the view that living beings are trapped in a continual cycle of birth and death that is influenced by one's actions. The final release from this cycle is a total transcendence called nirvana.
             In Christianity, the soul is all-important. Most Christians believe that the soul is God given at creation, or conception, and that it is a distinct entity from the physical body. In Christianity the concept of soul allows for a being to enter life after death while leaving the physical corpse behind. It is further believed by Christians that the soul remains in an intermediate disembodied state until it is reunited with a resurrected body. The soul, in Christianity, is an immaterial body that represents the personal identity of a person. It
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