Maitreya — “the Loving One,” “the Benevolent” — is the Buddha who is yet to come: the future Buddha who waits in the Tushita heaven and who will descend, in a far age when the teachings of the present Buddha have been forgotten, to become the next Buddha of this world and turn the wheel of the dharma anew. He is the great hope of the future, the embodiment of loving-kindness, awaited across the entire Buddhist world.
The Buddha to Come
Maitreya (Metteyya in Pali) is universally accepted across all schools of Buddhism — one of the few figures honoured by Theravada and Mahayana alike — as the next Buddha, the successor to Gautama (Shakyamuni), the Buddha of our present age. He now dwells as a bodhisattva in the Tushita heaven, the realm where the future Buddha awaits his final birth, and there he teaches the gods and prepares for his descent. When, in the distant future, the dharma of the present age has wholly decayed and been lost, Maitreya will be reborn into the human world, attain perfect enlightenment beneath a bodhi-tree, and re-establish the pure teaching, inaugurating a new age of the dharma.
The Embodiment of Loving-Kindness
Maitreya’s name derives from maitri (metta), “loving-kindness,” the boundless benevolence and goodwill toward all beings that is one of the supreme Buddhist virtues; he is the very embodiment of this universal love. As the awaited Buddha of the future, he is a figure of hope and renewal — the promise that the dharma will not be lost forever, that a new Buddha will come, and that loving-kindness will one day prevail in a renewed world. His expected coming has inspired devotion, art, and at times messianic movements across the Buddhist world.
The Laughing Buddha and the Many Forms
Maitreya is depicted in many forms: as an elegant bodhisattva awaiting his descent, often seated in a posture of readiness; and, famously in China and East Asia, as the jovial, fat, laughing “Budai” (Hotei in Japan) — the rotund, cheerful monk with a sack and a broad grin, an incarnation of Maitreya, beloved as a figure of contentment, abundance, and good fortune (the “Laughing Buddha” of popular imagination). In Maitreya, Buddhism gave form to hope and loving-kindness — the future Buddha awaiting in the Tushita heaven, the embodiment of universal love, the promise that a new Buddha will come to renew the dharma in a far and better age.