Chapter 1 THE BIRTH OF BUDDHAS (Acts 1, 2, and 3 of the Buddha) Introduction Where do Buddhas come from? How many Buddhas are there at any one time? Whenever we ask a question like this, of the form "What is the Buddhist view of X?" we need to picture a medicine or tool chest model of Buddhism and realize that the question is only mean- ingful when rephrased as "What is the view of X for Buddhist B at time T and place P?" In this book, I concentrate as far as possible on what links the various forms of Buddhism together, but I cannot ignore the differences entirely and still pretend that I am speaking of Buddhism as it actually exists. In regard to the question of the origin of Buddhas in particu- lar, different, and apparently contradictory, answers are given by different Buddhist lineages. The two chief lineages are -31- |