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ARe there any schools which say that Shakyamuni the historical Buddha, alone, will ever be a Buddha?

I understand that some might identify him fully with the dharmakaya, but isn't it completely canonical that there is a Buddha vehicle for others, at some point in time?

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No, there are no schools that claim this. All the schools accept that there were previous Buddhas before Buddha Shakyamuni and that there will be Buddhas after him as well.

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  • do you have any source for this
    – Ryan
    Aug 16, 2015 at 11:58
  • You can't really give a specific citation to show that all schools don't believe in something. All you can do is point to them all and indicate that none of them do, and all the major scriptural collections (i.e. the Pali Canon accepted by the Theravada school, the Chinese Canon accepted in East Asia, and the Tibetan Kangyur) of all the major schools have references to previous and future Buddhas.
    – Bakmoon
    Aug 16, 2015 at 19:40
  • I realize that. I just find it odd that there WOULDN'T be some small, one-off branch of Buddhism that believes just this. Which is why I'm asking for a source that has led you to believe that such a branch doesn't exist, to make such a claim that NO schools claim this. How do you know that NO schools claim this?
    – Ryan
    Aug 17, 2015 at 0:40
  • It is something so basic and fundamental to the teaching of both Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism that if such a group existed, it would definitely be mentioned in general sources. By definition, Mahayana Buddhism is about teaching people how to become fully enlightened Buddhas, and within the Theravada school, the very early Suttas mention the previous Buddha Kassapa. Without proof that such a group DOES exist, we have to default to assuming they don't.
    – Bakmoon
    Aug 17, 2015 at 2:18
  • So you don't know this to be true, then. You're assuming. Thank you for the clarification.
    – Ryan
    Aug 17, 2015 at 11:09

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