The greatest danger
While some Western Zen Buddhisms pooh-pooh karma and rebirth, the Buddha saw perhaps the greatest danger for sentient beings was getting ensnared in the cycle of rebirths (samsara) by their craving.
"This, bhikshus, is the craving, the net-trap that flows, far-flung, ensnarling, with which this world is smothered, overwhelmed, like a tangled ball of thread, a tangled ball, like matted munja grass and babbala reed, that does not go beyond the plane of misery, the evil destination, the lower realm, samsara [the cycle of rebirth and redeath]" (A. ii. 212, trans. Piya Tan).
With consciousness (vijñâna/viññâna) is bound fast by desire and attachment to the corporeal body (this consciousness is called nikanti viññâna) it is also the surviving factor after the individual dies. It can re-enter womb (garbha) after womb (D. iii. 147), which is the condition of samsara. If consciousness is not transcended, no escape from samsara is possible.
"At the time of rebirth, consciousness is directly conditioned by the sankhârâ, the constructed karmic formations projected from previous actions; and during this life the afflictive factor of craving, together with the actions it impels, propels the growth of consciousness toward a further rebirth. Consciousness is thus the result, the product, of karmic activities both at the beginning of one lifetime and in the transitions to the next. Moreover, since viññâna is the only process explicitly said to continue during rebirth, it is closely, albeit indefinitely, related to the accumulation and transmission of karmic potential over multiple lifetimes. On the other hand, viññâna may also be pacified and brought to an end, a condition that is virtually equated with liberation" (William Waldron, The Zen Buddhism Unconscious, 28).
Whatever habitual tendencies and karmic formations (sankhârâ) consciousness bears, by transcending consciousness with the realization of pure Mind, we have put an end to samsara. This, as the reader can see, is not at all stressed in modern Buddhism because Western Zen Buddhisms do not believe in reincarnation or that consciousness is reborn which means they actually do not believe in Buddhism.
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