Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future!

Who is Maitreya?

Maitreya was sent from Laomu - the Divine Creator - to help mankind fulfill the greatest wish to attain joy.

We face many problems in our life, whether we realize it or not. Deep in heart, we yearn for joy bless, and peace. Laomu sees and knows this because we are all Her children. For this reason, Laomu've sent Maitreya to come to the world to solve all our problems and sufferings, and build a world of peace and joy for everyone.  

The significant of Maitreya's coming is to show us how to live a joyful way. His coming is the answer to what we are searching for. In this turbulence world, Maitreya comes in the right time; just like bread for a starving man, a glass of water for a thirsty man. Maitreya's coming brings enlightenment and happiness without any discrimination.

Maitreya Vow

Maitreya's great benevolence vowed to change the world into the Pure Land of universal happiness. Maitreya does not wish to be the only soul who knows the esoteric essence of enlightenment and divine joy. He does not want to experience liberation and happiness alone, while many beings are enduring the bitterness of life. His inspiration of bringing joy to all beings shed light upon His equal respect to all beings.  

In honoring all life, He stopped the act of killing by taking the vow to lead the vegetarian life. He feels the sufferings of sentient beings as His own suffering and wants to solve the agonies of life, aging, illness, and death. His concerns over humankind and all beings led Him to make the vow to recreate the world into the Pure Land of the Heavenly Kingdom.

Maitreya Prophecy

Maitreya, in Buddhism, the future Buddha, a Buddha who will be reborn in a period of decline to renew the doctrine of the founder of Buddhism, the Buddha. Maitreya is believed to be a bodhisattva, one who refuses entry into nirvana, a transcendent state free from suffering, out of a compassionate desire to help others. At present, he is believed to reside in Tushita Heaven, where he awaits his rebirth (see Transmigration). Although various calculations exist, this rebirth is expected to occur in 30,000 years. At the moment of his rebirth, Buddhist law will have completely degenerated, requiring a new revelation. After his rebirth, by some accounts, Maitreya will lead all beings still trapped in the cycle of rebirths to nirvana. Others maintain that he will preach for 60,000 years, after which he will enter nirvana and his doctrine will endure for another 10,000 years. His cult first appeared in India around the 3rd century then spread throughout China, Korea, and Japan. The traditions surrounding Maitreya describe him taking on a variety of forms, such as a slothful student, a companion of the Buddha, or a kind tutor. In China, he is revered as a folk deity who wanders the country with a third eye in his back. In addition, Chinese emperors and empresses have claimed to be the incarnation of Maitreya in order to achieve political security. Sometime in the 4th or 5th century, Buddhist monks brought the cult of Maitreya to Korea, where followers established him as a god of fertility who grants infants to barren women and answers the prayers of children.

Another source adds:

Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future, is the harbinger of a new age, who awaits his final rebirth as Buddha in his Tushita Heaven of Joy. His role was especially celebrated in the pantheon and rituals of the reformed Gelugpa order as the next Buddha as well as the source of a significant group of tantras. Tsongkhapa named his first monastery Ganden, after Maitreya's heaven, and he and his followers "went to Ganden" when they died. Maitreya fulfilled many needs, both spiritual and political. He was the anointed heir-apparent to Shakyamuni and the model for kings and emperors who saw
themselves as enlightened chakravartin world rulers. Tibetan and Mongolian monasteries usually housed Maitreya images, which were used in the annual Maitreya Festival instituted by Tsongkhapa in 1409 and promulgated in Mongolia by Zanabazar after his miraculous, fateful visit with the Panchen Lama in 1655.  

Held at the New Year in Da Khree (Urga), the Maitreya Festival had great appeal to Buddhists in Tibet and Mongolia yearning for stability after years of political uncertainty. Zanabazar must have understood the complex ramifications of his devotion to Maitreya; he is known to have focused on him in his own prayers and practice. He also cast images of the Future Buddha, several of which survive.

At least two representations of Maitreya attributed to Zanabazar's hand follow a classic, Nepalese-inspired model, best seen in a Tibetan Maitreya from Narthang, dated to 1190 (fig. 1). One is now kept at Gandantegchinlin Monastery in Ulaanbaatar (fig. 2) and the second and larger of the two, seen here, was the very Maitreya used in the annual festival held at Da Khree, Zanabazar's monastic encampment. Yet another, strikingly similar image, which bears all the earmarks of Zanabazar's own work, has a double-lobed aureole and a square pedestal (see Bartholomew, "Introduction to the Art
of Mongolia," fig. 5).

In all these works, the Future Buddha is shown as a young bodhisattva. His hair, once washed blue, is piled high in a Brahmanic style that repeats the form of the stupa-reliquary resting above his brow. He holds in his left hand a kundika bottle filled with the elixir of immortality and raises his right hand in the vitarka mudra, the gesture of argumentation. His nearly evanescent dhoti is ringed by two sashes and crossed with a Brahmanic thread. A flayed antelope skin covers his left shoulder. The lotus pedestal that supports his smooth, flat, nearly ankleless feet is radically simplified into a form Zanabazar often used, with two rows of upturned petals interspersed with round tipped stamens.
-P.B.  Published: Tsultem, Mongolian Sculpture, fig. 78; Beguin, Tresors de Mongolie, no. 6