Maitreya

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

When you travel to Tibet, you will often see the Maitreya, the Future Buddha, in the Temples and Monasteries. Along with Avalokitesvara, Manjushri, and so on. He is the one in the seating position, and he wears a small stupa on his forehead. Seating position means he is ready to come to this world. Stupa on his forehead contains relics of Buddha Sakyamuni, and this is to help him identify it when his turn comes to lay claim to his succession.

Maitreya is also called Jampa ( loving-kindness) in the Tibetan Language. He is believed to be the Buddha of the future, hence the fifth Buddha. We believe there will be thousands of buddha coming here to help show the path to enlightenment to us in this world. The historical Buddha is the fourth in the line, and future buddha shall see me Maitreya.

He represents one of the eight spiritual qualities of the Buddha: the loving compassion of all the Buddha. Many stories say that if a person practices true love and compassion to other beings, he or she might be able to see Maitreya in his life and this world.

Origin and Present emanation of Maitreya

Many aeons ago, Maitreya made many offerings, and he took bodhisattva vows from the Tathagata Great Power in front of many other Buddhas. From that time on, he led countless sentient being to enlightenment by guiding them also the path of higher training.

As the practice progress, he specialized in the Meditation on great love. Besides teaching to others, he practices it continuously. He would often meditate at the entrance of a city and meditate deeply on loving-kindness. His meditation was so powerful that people touching his feet for blessing would receive the realisation of great love.

Buddha of ten directions are greatly pleased and rejoiced his action. They predicted that he would be known as Love (Jampa or Maitreya). This is how he got his name.

In one of his incarnation. he was born amount the thousand sons of a great king. The king was curious to know the order in which his sons would achieve enlightenment. He put all the names in a bowl, meditated deeply for seven days and perform many ritual offerings. After this, he drew the names one by one. The name of Maitreya came out fifth, predicting he would be the fifth buddha of the present era; Buddha Shakyamuni is the fourth.

He ultimately achieved the highest level of a bodhisattva through spiritual development and eventually became a fully enlightened Buddha. After complete enlightenment, he manifested in many different aspects in countless buddha fields. Currently, it is believed he is living in his adobe, the pure land of Tushita, where he teaches to countless advanced bodhisattva disciples. Maitreya manifests as countless spiritual master throughout all space direction and leads countless being on the path to full awakening.

Eventually, Maitreya will come as the fifth Buddha of this world and turn the dharma wheel for the benefit of all. This will come in the following manner.

Maitreya Thangka on display during Yogurt festival

The future life as the fifth Buddha

In the future, The being of this world will degenerate due to the growth of delusion. Their lives will be full of suffering, and their lifespan keeps decreasing. When life expectancy on humans decreases to only ten years, Maitreya will manifest as a great spiritual master and teach loving-kindness. As a result of his teaching, they will gradually give up their deluded attitudes and harmful behaviour. Hence their lifespan will gradually start to increase.

Gradually in many aeons later, people will grow enormously and will live for 80,000 years when their life regrades back to 100 years of a lifetime. As per the prophecies of all the Buddhas and his own promise, this is when Maitreya, the buddha of Future, will appear as a universal Teacher like Buddha Shakya Muni.

The life of Maitreya will be begun the same as any prince would, and he would then abandon his worldly life and family to go to find a path to enlightenment. After enlightenment, Maitreya will turn the wheel of dharma three-time, each time countless of the disciple will come to listen. These teaching will attract only humans but also countless being from this realm and other realms. Out of these, many will immediately become arhats, bodhisattvas and even fully enlightened buddhas.

Maitreya will live for 60,000 years, providing direct spiritual guidance to his many disciples during his lifetime, and, after he passes away, his teachings will last another 80,000 years, indirectly benefiting many more. Thus, through the power of his great, enlightened loving-kindness, Maitreya will provide limitless benefit to countless mother sentient beings.

In the absolute sense, Maitreya is subject to neither death nor rebirth; he forever benefits all mother sentient beings. Furthermore, he once declared, “Anybody keeping just one vow of moral discipline purely during the time of Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings will become my personal disciple when I appear, and I shall liberate all such disciples.” He faithfully keeps this promise, his sworn oath and pledge.

Therefore, those of us fortunate enough to have met the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha and maintained some level of pure discipline are guaranteed to make direct contact with Maitreya, become his disciple and quickly achieve enlightenment.