WHAT THE BUDDHA ACCEPTED

Two major Hindu doctrines the Buddha accepted.  He believed in the law of karma and in reincarnation, albeit with modifications to both. 

In the Buddha's view, a person of any caste or class could experience so complete a change of disposition as to escape the full consequences of transgressions in previous lives.  This is a change in position from the traditional view that the law of karma operated remorselessly and without an inch of remission for past misdeeds.

As for the doctrine of reincarnation, the Buddha held firmly to this, but with the somewhat puzzling view that no actual soul-substance passed over from one existence to another.  The Buddha's reflection upon his own personality led him to deny that any of its elements had any permanence.  All that existed was an impermanent aggregation or composite of constantly changing states of being.  At death, this aggregation dispersed. 

But if no substantial entity, a "soul" or a "psyche," passed over from one existence to the next, how could the Buddha hold to the doctrine of reincarnation?  The Buddha went on to explain that all that passed over to the next life was a karma-laden character structure, likened to a seal pressed upon wax.  A particular individuality in one existence was the direct cause of the type of individuality in the next.