Maitreya

The Tushita paradise

Maitreya currently reigns with the paradise “Tushita”, the Merry one, as a Bodhisattva of the “tenth ground”, Nuées of Dharma, where he works to dissipate his last veils with omniscience. It will not however reach the “unsurpassable perfect awakening” (samyak sambodhi will anuttara) only by its passage in “Akanistha”, the higher realms of existence of the world of the form (rupaloka). Absorbing itself there in the Samadhi similar to diamond, it will become a Bouddha and will return in the human sphere, as all the other fields where the wheel of the law must be set in motion.

The advent of Maitreya

More particularly Maitreya is the subject of the Prophétie of Maitreya (Maitreyavyākaraṇa). It is known as there that it will appear in Ketumati, the Resplendent one, other of name of Varanasi, that it will be born to with it in a family from Brahmane S, whereas Shakyamuni was of the military caste of the Kshatriya Of the same S., whereas Bouddha Shakyamuni was a Buddha of Compassion (karuna) which has occurred in an age of sufferings, Maitreya, as its name indicates it, will be a Buddha of Bienveillance (maitri), in an age of harmony, in order to raise the wellbeing of the world, and to direct it towards the Awakening.

In Varanasi it will express the full Awakening so, him also, to make turn the “Wheel of Dharma”, Dharmachakra.

Its advent should only occur very a long time after the death of Shakyamuni; the estimates of the duration between the two events largely vary according to the theories, depend on the version chosen for the calculation of the three ages of the boudhism.

Its role in Mahāyāna

Asanga, one of the founders of the Yogācāra, dissatisfied of the lesson of Hīnayāna, and not being able to include/understand the direction of the Prajñāpāramitā S, will soutras them treating Vacuité, meditated more than twelve years on Maitreya, its deity of meditation, until it meets it in vision. Maitreya taught to him what will become the Five treaties of Maitreya on the real nature of the phenomena. A more prosaic version sees rather there the lesson of sound Guru, Maitreyanatha (270 - 350); what would make finally to this last the real inititator of the Yogācāra school. The Prophétie of Maitreya was the object in China at certain times of an interpretation clearly millenarist, and inspired the drafting of many versions apocryphal books. It offers a hope to populations which have the feeling to live during the final time of the dharma where the social order and monk degrade themselves and the catastrophes and disasters multiply, and which await a saver inaugurating one new era. This belief is responsible for the popularity of Maitreya near the syncretistic sects (Buddhism - Manicheism - Taoïsme) of which some were implied in rebellions, as that of the red Turbans which put an end to the Mongolian dynasty. Maitreya is also awaited by new religious currents Chinese.

The prolongation (historically obvious) of the time envisaged by the short estimate which seems to have prevailed at the beginnings of Buddhism (advent of Maitreya 500 to 1500 years after the Parinirvana) is sometimes explained by the fact why the bodhisattva would have chosen slowest of the three ways making it possible to arrive at the perfect illumination: wisdom, faith and effort, by decreasing order of speed. To accelerate its arrival, it is advised to redouble piety and to multiply the offerings with the monks and the visits with the temples. Certain currents deviating from orthodoxe Buddhism estimate on the contrary that Maitreya reached already the state of Buddha but differs its arrival, or that it is already in this world incognito.

Milefo

Maitreya was known in China as of the 3rd century. It found there an incarnation historical, phenomenon running in the Chinese religious context, which contributed to give him an physical aspect and a role other than those that Buddhism had up to that point lent to him.

Under the dynasty Liang lived a monk wandering Chan, of religious name Qici (契此), originating in the prefecture of Mingzhou in the Zhejiang. Transporting any sound necessary in a double sack in fabric, it was characterized by its stoutness and a behavior mild nutter and unforeseeable but benevolent; one lent to him moreover of the exceptional gifts of clairvoyance. He would have died in meditation with the temple Yuelinsi (嶽林寺), in his province of origin, in 916, by pronouncing these words: “Maitreya truth is present simultaneously under billion forms; it is shown constantly, but nobody recognizes it. ” A legend was born which made the incarnation of Maitreya of it: one claimed to have seen it after his death, of the holy pictures the representative started to circulate.

The monk ventripotent and smiling became the representation of Maitreya most current and most popular in China. Its full belly and its smile are pledges of happiness and prosperity, just as his bag as one claims inexhaustible. These characteristics did not make a favorable impression on the French travellers of the 19th century, and Milefo is at the origin of the pejorative term “poussah” (of pusa , bodhisattva) designating a large man with the not very pleasing physique. The Qici monk became in Japan Hotei (of Budai 布袋 “bag of fabric”), one of the Seven gods of happiness. For the Chinese who are not interested in Buddhist theology, Milefo is one of the Gods of fortune.

Representations

Maitreya is generally represented as a saint man or a prince. When he sat, its two feet rest on the ground, which can be interpreted in two ways: he “did not sit yet” like Buddha, or on the contrary he prepares to rise and go down on ground. He can have the slightly lowered head besides, meaning that he looks at the world. He carries sometimes small a Stupa in his hairstyle. One often sees in his right hand a wheel posed on a lotus, and in the left a flask containing the nectar of the Dharma. Being the next one which will start the wheel of the Law, it makes of it sometimes the gesture ( will dharmachakra Mudrâ ). Large the bodhisattva is sometimes represented with at its sides the two more famous thinkers of the school Yogācāra, Asanga and its brother Vasubandhu. There exists in the Bouddhisme Tibetan illustrations showing the Buddha with on his left Manjushri and the philosophers representing the wisdom detached, and in its Maitreya right-hand side, follow-up of Asanga and Vasubandhu in front of their successors representing sympathizing wisdom

Milefo is a monk bald person with the rebounded belly and the delighted figure, often called the laughing Bouddha. Like all the beings of exception, the lobes of its ears are very long. In addition to its bag, it can carry a Gourde, symbol Taoïste of longevity.

Applicants and new interpretations

The Indian context to which the prophecy of Maitreya refers very naturally, did not prevent many people from being claimed her incarnation, and this as of the first centuries. Bodawpaya, sovereign of the kingdom of Ava (Myanmar) at the end of the 18th century, and Lu Zhongyi, 17th Master of Ikuan CAT, are two examples.

Maitreya was also adopted by new Buddhist or syncretistic currents religious, some born out of Asia. There exist Buddhist movements for which the central personality is Maitreya the saver; they consider that it reached the illumination before the Gautama Buddha, but took it for Master by respect and renonça temporarily with the Nirvāna.

Maitreya is one of the shapes of the supreme divinity of the Nouvelles Chinese religions syncretistic born from the Xiantiandao movement.

Share International (connects French: International division), founded in the Years 1970 by Benjamin Creme, influenced by the writings of the theosophist Helena Blavatsky and of Alice Ann Bailey, a pionnière of the Old New , claims that Maitreya is the Messie waited by all the religions under different names, and until the weather would have already been many public appearances and deprived.

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