Around Buddhism, Maitreya Bodhisattva is the future Buddha.

Maitreya occurs as bodhisattva who some Buddhists think might finally come out olympic games, achieve complete enlightenment, and teach a pure dharma. Maitreya Bodhisattva is a successor of the historic Sakyamuni Buddha. He is predicted to exist as the “world-ruler,� uniting people world health organization he system ended.

Characteristics
One of a earliest mention of Maitreya occurs as Sanskrit text, the Maitreyavyakarana (A Prophecy of Maitreya), stating that Gods, men & more beings might worship Maitreya &:

''"will lose their doubts, and the torrents of their cravings will be cut off: free from all misery they will manage to cross the ocean of becoming; and, as a result of Maitreya's teachings, they will lead a holy life. No longer will they regard anything as their own, they will have no possession, no gold or silver, no home, no relatives! But they will lead the holy life of chastity under Maitreya's guidance. They will have torn the net of the passions, they will manage to enter into trances, and theirs will be an abundance of joy and happiness, for they will lead a holy life under Maitreya's guidance."'' (Trans. inside Conze 1959:241)

Maitreythe’s coming coincides using a newly school of teaching to surpass that of the original Gautama Buddha. A Maitreya is predicted to attain Bodhi in a single season like than more prolonged pursuits of enlightenment, which take a minimal commitment of many years.

Maitreythe’s coming is characterized by a total of physical cases. A oceans come predicted to decrease around size, leaving a Maitreya to traverse the two freely. the event might besides allow a unveiling of a “true� dharma to the population, successively allowing for the construction of a occident. A coming too signifies a prevent of a middle period where homo presently reside (characterised as a moo point of individual being between the Gautama Buddha and Maitreya).

Sequentially for the gloexist as to understand the coming of Maitreya, a total of conditions must be fulfilled. Gifts must exist as given to monks, moral precepts must be followed, & offerings must be mass produced at shrines.

the select few of a cases foretold at a coming of the 2nd Buddha include an prevent to demise, warfare, famine, & disease (& apparently rebirth) also when the ushering within of a freshly society of tolerance & love.

When a total of souls own proclaimed themselves when Maitreya above a years charted the Sakyamuni Buddha’s dying, none has been officially recognized per sangha and the Buddhist peoples.

This prophecy strangely contradicts certain Buddhist teachings, suggesting it may stand been the borrowed eschatology rather than originating with Shakyamuni Buddha.

Maitreya lives in the Tusita heaven, said to become approachable across meditation, & which is considered to be tremendously nigher than a Pure Land heaven.

In the I-Kuan Tao religious movement, it is believed that Maitreya has already appeared olympic games.

Representations
Indo-Tibetan art typically depicts Maitreythe sitting on a potty using each feet on the ground, indicating that he has non eventually completed ascending his potty.

In the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, around the first centuries CE within northern Indithe, Maitreya is represented as a Central Asian or even northern Indian lord, holding a water supply fial in his left hand.

Chinese art typically shows him as a monk Hotei - the familiar smiling, shaven-headed, heavy-earlobed figure by using the pot-stomach suggesting prosperity.

Second coming prophecies
Maitreya is like to second coming prophecies in more religions, such as:

The coming of Kalki, the final avatar of Vishnu, in Hinduism The link to of Jesus in Christianity Saoshyant in Zoroastrianism The Jewish messiah Mahdi in Islamic eschatology

Origins
the first Buddha Maitreya, typically represented sitting around a potty American-style, & venerated each in Mahayana & non-Mahayana Buddhism, is another time considered when influenced per Zoroastrian god Mithra. "Some scholars suggest he (Maitreya) was originally linked to the Iranian saviour-figure Mitra, and that his later importance for Buddhist as the future Buddha residing in the Tusita heaven, who will follow on from Sakyamuni Buddha, derives from this source." (Keown, Lexicon of Buddhism). A bit of Zoroastrian ideas seem to keep close at hand influenced a cult of Maitreya, like "expectations of a heavenly helper, the need to opt for positie righteousness, the future millenium, and universal salvation" (Paul Williams, Mahayana Buddhism).

In the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, within a first centuries CE in northern India, Maitreya was a virtually all popular figure to become represented, together sustaining the Buddha Shakyamuni.

Within China, a cult of Maitreya seems to use at times developed sooner than that of Amithaba, when early as a 3rd century CE.