Who is Maitreya?

In Buddhist tradition, Maitreya is the bodhisattva who will be the next awakened teacher of our world. In Pali the name is Metteyya. It comes from the word for loving-kindness, maitrī in Sanskrit and mettā in Pali. Maitreya is the only bodhisattva honoured in all the main Buddhist traditions, Theravada as well as Mahayana and Vajrayana.

The next awakened teacher

Buddhists understand that awakened teachers appear from time to time over immensely long periods. Each rediscovers the Dharma after it has been forgotten and teaches it again. The Buddha of our age is Siddhartha Gautama. Tradition holds that the next will be Maitreya.

In the Pali Canon, the discourse on the wheel-turning monarch (Dīgha Nikāya 26) describes a far-off time when human life has become long and the world is at peace. Then, the text says, a teacher named Metteyya will arise and lead a large community of monks, just as the Buddha of our time does now.

Waiting in Tusita heaven

According to tradition, Maitreya now lives in the Tusita heaven, a heavenly realm, where the Buddha Gautama also lived before his last birth. When the time is right, Maitreya will be born in the human world, renounce, awaken and teach. Later texts give vast numbers of years before this happens.

Images of Maitreya

Maitreya is often shown seated on a throne with both feet on the ground, as if ready to stand and step into the world. Another common image, especially in Korea and Japan, shows a thoughtful figure with one leg crossed and a hand raised to the cheek.

In China, Maitreya also became associated with Budai, a cheerful, round-bellied monk of folk legend. Statues of this smiling, laughing figure are found at the entrance of many Chinese temples.

What Maitreya means to practitioners

For many Buddhists, Maitreya is a symbol of hope: the teaching will not be lost for ever, and goodness will flourish again. Some practitioners pray to be reborn at the time of Maitreya so that they can hear the teaching from him. In Tibetan Buddhism, several important texts on the Mahayana path are traditionally said to have been taught by Maitreya to the Indian scholar Asaṅga.

The name itself is a reminder. The coming of the next awakened teacher is linked with loving-kindness, a quality anyone can develop now.