The Buddha's "Second Coming" (Maitreya)

Seven Dharmachari, Ashley Wells, Amber Dorrian (Wisdom Quarterly) (Fabrizio_Gravity/Flickr)

In a space world named Tusita, devas (literally, "shining ones") implored Setaketu (Sanskrit, Śvetaketu or "White Banner") to be reborn on Earth to become a fully enlightened buddha.

The Bodhisatta Santussita deva accepted the challenge at their behest after reviewing the Five Great Considerations (vilokana):

1. a suitable time in history
2. continent
3. territory
4. clan
   
5. and lifespan of a mother (phramick).

• vilokana: (Sanskrit, glancing) looking at, investigation, reflection, prognostication usually Five Objects of Reflection as to when, where, how one shall be reborn, consisting of kāla, desa, dīpa, kula, mātā (the latter as janetti -- āyu i.e., mother and her time of delivery at Jataka i.48) or time (right or wrong), continent, sky (orientation), family (or clan), and one's (future) mother: Jat i.48, 49; DhA i.84; as 8 at Miln 193, viz. kāla, dīpa, desa, kula, janetti, āyu, māsa, nekkhamma (i.e., the five plus period of gestation, month of birthday, and renunciation)...(Pali-English Dictionary, Rhys Davids & Wm. Stede).

As mirrored by Christianity and Judaism -- awaiting the Messiah -- many Buddhists await Maitreya (Pali, Metteya, "loving-friend"). He is the buddha-to-come.

This will not, however, be a second coming. It will be an entirely different buddha. The historical Buddha, like all liberated beings, has gained liberation from ALL birth and death.

The meaning of "liberation" (moksha) is that one is finally free of all forms of suffering having gained release from the round of rebirth (samsara).

But if Shakyamuni Buddha will not come again, who will? The Buddhaspoke of the next supremely enlightened teaching-buddha. Theoretically, one can visit this future-buddha either by space travel or meditation.

Both methods are unlikely. So people wait. Who is he, and when will he be coming?

The Second Coming
His name will be Maitreya. His name is currently Nātha (Sanskrit, "Protector"). He now resides in the delightful space world of Tusita with a sure prediction from the historical Buddha that he will be the next buddha to appear on Earth.

There are three kinds of buddhas: personal (arhat), nonteaching (pacceka), and teaching (samma-sam).

Humans in this great-aeon (maha-kalpa) are said to live in a fortunate age because it has seen the appearance of more than one "supremely enlightened" teacher. This kind of buddha rediscovers and establishes the Dharma, the path to liberation.

Unfortunately, the staggering time spans between teaching-buddhas could, it is said, be measured in geological time.

Time races when one is having fun in exalted worlds, yet even the longest long lifespan is too soon exhausted. Relative to Earth time, it could be epochs before the "second coming" of a buddha.

The hsitorical Buddha Gautama named 24 teaching-buddhas who had lived in previous ages be. How long will that be exactly? This was explained to Visakha:

• "Visakha, that which among humans is currently four hundred years is but one celestial night and day in the world of the Tusita devas. Their celestial month has 28 of those days, their year 13 of those months. And the lifespan of the Tusita devas is 4,000 of those celestial years..." (AN 8.43, Wisdom Quarterly translation, Visakha-Uposatha Sutra: Discourse to Visakha on the Lunar Observance Day and the Eight Practices).

So how long will Natha (the future Maitreya) be tied up in the bliss of the Tusita world?*

The description of time here sounds very specific. Many Buddhists behave as if they are awaiting a "second coming." The mainstream media made it sound as if he had already arrived in Nepal in the form of "Buddha Boy" (Ram Bahadur Bomjon, aka Ven. Palden Dorje).

These misunderstandings and the expectations that arise on account of them lead to messianic religious tendencies. This is particularly pronounced among Tibetan Vajrayanists and Buddhists in other traditions (Mahayana, Theravada, Shingon).

The Time to Practice

Many individuals seem to think it is better to wait to practice meditation until Maitreya's return, when they have a buddha to practice under. How they imagine they will have a rare human rebirth, or meet with the Dharma again, or meet a buddha is hard to understand.

Merit makes it not impossible, but it would still be extraordinarily good fortune. It will surely extend their suffering by delaying their practice and realization.

Why would anyone ever think him or herself lucky enough to be living on Earth or as a nearby deva capable and interested in practice, or to be healthy and in possession of all one's faculties (which is rare), or to hear the Dharma (the rarest of all opportunities) at that crucial time?

To be alive and residing in the "Middle Country" anywhere near the Buddha Maitreya and to come into any kind of contact with him, or even to hear of the Teaching and recognize it as true is beyond unlikely.

It would be far better to practice now and be reborn as a deva with an incredibly long lifespan. That would increase one's chances by far. And it would benefit them and make it much more likely that they would have an affinity with such a teacher when he born in the world.

It cannot be overstated how rare it is to ever be a human, much less a virtuous, healthy one, who even hears of the Dharma. All of these stack the odds against us. The Buddha frequently emphasized this to spur followers to practice without delaying or waiting for better circumstances.

The Buddha gave a famous analogy on the likelihood of ever being reborn as a human being: Say one were to throw a ring in the ocean, which was then tossed about by wind and waves. And say at the same time a sea turtle were to jump in that ocean and swim freely about only sticking its head up out of the water once every 100 years. Given these two events:

• What is the chance that turtle would fortuitously, by sticking its head out once a century, put its head through the ring?
  

Well, according to the Buddha, that would sooner happen than one would again have the opportunity to be reborn as a human being.

The moral of the story? Practice NOW when the chance is at hand! This is an unbelievable opportunity. One will never regret the profitable karma one has stored up or the unskillful deeds one left undone.

The progress achieved towards the unparalleled bliss of enlightenment and nirvana can hardly be compared to any worldly or heavenly wealth. Moreover, sincere practice gives one the best chance to meet a buddha in the future.

• *Lifespan of devas in Tusita is said to be 576,000,000 human years [using European solar calendar assumptions, which Wisdom Quarterly has rectified below]. See story in the Dhammapada Commentary (translated in Buddhist Legends, Pali Text Society, London, 1969) called "Husband-honorer," which brings to life this comparative time scale.
• Part II: "Celestial Time and Math"
  

Celestial Time and Math

PART II: The Buddha's "Second Coming" (Maitreya)

India and the rest of the world, having been well educated from space visitors on how to track time, use a lunar not a solar (Gregorian) calendar.

It is the natural way to count, which even the Mayans (Maya) knew about. Our Moon was placed exactly where it is for a reason, not by a creator God but by space-devas presumably with the approval of Chandra, who holds sway on the Moon, a deva recognized by Buddhists, Jains, Hindus, and consequently much of Asia.

Those visiting beings not only gave the world a natural means of reckoning and agrarian and astrological calendars and synchronaries, but also languages (such as Sanskrit), advanced mathematics and geometry, and Knowledge Books (like the ancient Indus River Valley Civilization Vedas, from vidya, "knowledge" the opposite of avidya, "ignorance").

• a week has seven days beginning with Moon-day
• a month (Moonth?) four weeks, a full moon, and 28 days
• a year has 13 full moons and (13 x 28) 364 days + 1 free day

This lunar year cycle serves as the basis of a very reliable calendar. It has served cultures around the world for millenia (aeons perhaps). Why an alien group or groups, of which there are many who visit to promote their own often selfish agendas, with the help of Church hegemony replaced that system with the irregular count of the solar calendar is anyone's guess.

India and the Maya had a synchronary and other "calendars" and almanacs for the charting the seasons for farming, vital to the success of agrarian societies, and for keeping cosmic time, which is important to extraterrestrial aliens.

• 1 Tusita deva day and night = 400 human years
• 1 Tusita deva month has 28 days (28 x 400) = 11,200 human years
• 1 Tusita deva year (13 x 11,200 + 400) = 125,440,400 human years
• 1 Tusita deva lifespan (4,000 x 125,440,400) = 584,000,000?
• Check our work (365 x 400 x 4,000) = 584,000,000 human years!
• Consider: We don't know when he arrived or if he'll leave early.
• Conclusion: Maitreya won't be coming for a while.

Wisdom Quarterly's resident math geek and linguist are not here to verify our calculations or to read the Vedas' Ganita Sutras. And we are not trying to be like the Bible student who calculated that creation took place roughly 6,000 years ago at about 9:00 am. (This is not a joke).

What we are attempting to emphasize is that waiting for Maitreya is like Waiting for Godot! Practice now and practice then. Practice is always of benefit.

The people who quickly attained when the Buddha said but a few words to them did so because they had practiced a great deal of development (meditation) for a long time before that. Study and put those studies into the practice of the Path. That is why it is there.

So when is the Second Coming?
When will Maitreya Buddha arrive and begin teaching the Dharma? The Bodhisattva Natha will leave Tusita and take final human rebirth when the Five Great Considerations prompt him to do so.

It is not a matter of exhausting his supporting karma in Tusita. Noting that the former dispensation has completely disappeared, it will be what Natha sees happening on Earth when he reviews those five things.

• Vedic Mathematics

Putting Knowledge into Practice

Thoughts on the Dhamma (Facebook)

Discourse on To Nirvana via the Noble Eightfold Path

According to the Buddha, knowledge relating to the Noble Path transports one to the stage of all suffering or unsatisfactoriness ceasing. But it must always be borne in mind that the Path offers liberation only to those who actually practice it.

In your travels a vehicle takes you to your destination, while those who stand by it are left behind. Knowledge about the Noble Path is like that vehicle. If you ride in it, you will be conveyed to your destination; if you merely stand by, you will be left behind.

Those who desire to be liberated from all suffering should use that vehicle. That is to say, they should use knowledge gained for practical purposes. The most important task for someone born into a rare historical period when the Buddha's Dispensation exists is to practice Dharma so as to reach nirvana when all suffering ceases.

Women's Full Ordination Controversy

Wisdom Quarterly editors

Samaneris (novice nuns) circumabulating Shwedagon Pagoda, Rangoon, Burma (AFP).

In an unprecedented historical act, Australia's Ajahn Brahm, a senior abbot in the Thai Forest Tradition of Theravada Buddhism, conducted a reinstatement ceremony at his Australian monastery for a group of four nuns to make them fully ordained bhikkhunis, the highest level of Buddhist monastics.

The bestowing of full ordination for women -- which lapsed centuries ago with no easy way to restore it or, as some argue, with no legitimate way to restore it at all -- is revolutionary. However, women were reinstated a few years ago in India using senior Mahayana nuns as preceptors, through the brave work of some monks from Sri Lanka. (Currently, it is possible to ordain in the US as a higher ordination nun at West Virginia's Bhavana Society, pictured, under the auspices of the Sri Lankan abbot Ven. Gunaratana, "Bhante G").

Novices on their way to full ordination as Theravada nuns through the Bhavana Society of West Virginia (bhavanasociety.org)

But Ajahn Brahm's actions is sure to help legitimize female ordination. It has even been argued that the rules banning women from higher ordination after the lapse of the Bhikkhuni Order was due to rules invented by men or monks, not by an actual decree or set of eight special rules binding only on women laid out by the Buddha.

The Theravada lineage is the oldest extant Buddhist tradition. It maintains the disciplinary regulations (Vinaya) that facilitate the survival of the Sangha and extend the duration during which the Dharma exists in the world. The rules laid out by the Buddha are only altered during formal councils, of which there have been very few in the past 25 centuries. But part of the problem as to whether any rule can be altered at all falls at the feet of Ananda (and perhaps Mara). The Buddha is reputed to have said that after his passing, the Sangha could gather and change the minor rules but not the major rules. Ananda had a momentary lapse. So affected was he by the news of the Buddha's impending demise (parinirvana), that he failed to asked the Buddha which were which.

The Buddha conferring ordination to the first Buddhist nun, his mother, Maha Pajapati

The controversy sparked by female ordination in the first place, a momentous decision for a world religion, is dwarfed by the controversy to re-establish the practice after it lapsed. Some Buddhist countries, like Thailand, never had a Bhikkhuni Sangha (Buddhist Order of Nuns). Ajahn Brahm, although a Westerner and the abbot of a monastery and (lower ordination) nunnery in Australia, was ordained in the Thai tradition. This makes his actions quite radical, and one can imagine that it is not a popular move among very pious Thai Buddhists afraid to deviate in any way from orthodoxy.

Nevertheless, Thailand is quite progressive, particularly with regard to gender and sexual politics. (Thailand, after all, has a third gender, the kathoey). One prominent university professor decided she wanted to be recognized as a fully ordained Buddhist nun (a bhikkhuni rather than a "novice" or 10 precept samaneri). And this caused quite a stir in Thai society, where monks enjoy a particularly prominent status and wield tremendous influence. Individual monks of course do not have much say, but the Sangha does. It is an integral part of society. The "Sangha" is represented, then, not by ordinary monks but by abbots and long standing elders (theras) who have quite a bit of say in secular matters.

This entire episode is quite sad. For other Buddhist traditions -- Chinese Mahayana, Tibetan Vajrayana, and independent Western movements -- have longstanding Bhikkhuni Orders. And those nuns have only helped the tradition as a whole. Theravada has always had 10 Precept Nuns, who look and act like fully ordained monastics. Their status is already subordinated to that of men because of the eight special rules (of dubious origin) for women. So it is not clear what would be lost by their ordination. But what there is to gain is clear -- the dispensation (sasana) would be complete. Women would fully participate in society. The Sangha would be strengthened and enlarged. Women would have the same opportunity to gain enlightenment and enjoy the full support of society. Fear and sexism have kept this from happening for long enough.

Buddhism Reaches Burma

Burma: fierce Naga warrior, famed even in the time of the Buddha (allmyanmar.com)

Enlightened Missionaries originally spread Buddhism

Soon after his Great Enlightenment, the Buddha sent out 60 enlightened disciples. They had the mandate to spread the good news (of liberation) to the world, with no two going in the same direction. They made it to Alexandria, Greece, Afghanistan, Persia, and the teaching of these Great Elders (Maha Theras) eventually made it to the Middle East (by way of Saint Issa), right to the religious powder keg known as Jerusalem. The teachings traveled throughout Asia, by way of the Silk Route which had as much to do with commerce as culture.

Eventually, because Chinese missionaries were blown far off course, Buddhism made it to the pre-European-contact New World. It revolutionized cultures wherever it went, often meeting heavily Animistic indigenous views and melding with them. For example, pre-Buddhist Tibet practiced Bon, Japan practiced Shinto, and China was steeped in ancestor worship.

Closer to home (the Buddha after all lived in Northern India, or what was known as the "Middle Country" portion of Jambudvipa, lit. "the Rose Apple Island," the ancient name of the Indian subcontinent), missionaries arrived in Burma. However, as history records, it was not until a few hundred years later -- during the reign of an empire -- that a Buddhist Council made a concerted effort to establish the teachings in Myanmar (which, of course, bore different borders and different clan and tribal allegiances than the Naga, Karen, Mon, majority Burman, and others seen today).

Burmese tribesmen, young girls from the mountainous region (allmyanmar.com)

Buddhism in Myanmar: A Short History
Roger Bischoff (Access to Insight)

Missionaries of the Third Buddhist Council
The Third Buddhist Council was held during the reign of Emperor Asoka in the year 232 BCE in order to purify the monastic order (Sangha), to reassert orthodox teaching, and to refute heresy. But the work of the Council did not stop there.

18th century Burman replete with Indochinese influences (allmyanmar.com)

With the support of Emperor Asoka, experienced teachers were sent to border regions in order to spread the teachings of the Buddha. This dispersal of missionaries is recorded in the Mahavamsa, a Sri Lankan chronicle on the history of Buddhism:

When the Thera ("Elder") Moggaliputta, the illuminator of the religion of the Conqueror, had brought the (third) council to an end and when, looking into the future, he had beheld the founding of the religion in adjacent countries, then in the month of Katthika he sent forth theras, one here and one there.

The thera Majjhantika he sent to Kasmira and Gandhara [Kashmir and Afghanistan], the thera Mahadeva he sent to Mahisamandala [the region girding the Himalayas]. To Vanavasa he sent the thera named Rakkhita, and to Aparantaka the Yona named Dhammarakkhita; to Maharattha he sent the thera named Mahadhammarakkhita, but the thera Maharakkhita he sent into the country of the Yona. He sent the thera Majjhima to the Himalaya country and together with the thera Uttara, the thera Sona of wondrous might went to Suvannabhumi...12

According to the Sasanavamsa [the "great history of the dispensation"], the above mentioned regions are the following: Kasmira and Gandhara is the right bank of the Indus river south of Kabul; Mahisamandala is Andhra; Vanavasa is the region around Prome; Aparantaka is west of the upper Irrawaddy; Maharattha is Thailand; Yona, the country of the Shan tribes; and Suvannabhumi is Thaton (Burma). The Sasanavamsa mentions five places in Southeast Asia where Asoka's missionaries taught the Buddha's doctrine, and through their teaching many gained insight and took refuge in the Triple Gem [Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha].

There are two interesting features mentioned in the text. First, in order to ordain nuns (bhikkhunis), other bhikkhunis had to be present, and secondly, the Brahmajala Sutra ["The All-Embracing Net of Views Discourse"] was preached in Thaton.

The Sasanavamsa goes on to describe sixty-thousand women ordaining in Aparanta. It states that women could not have been ordained without the presence of bhikkhunis, as in Sri Lanka where women could only be ordained after Ven. Mahinda's sister Sanghamitta had followed her brother there. In this case, it is surmised that bhikkhunis must have followed Dhammarakkhita to Aparanta at a later stage.

The Brahmajala Sutra, which the arhats ["enlightened"] Sona and Uttara preached in Thaton, deals in detail with the different schools of philosophical and religious thought prevalent in India at the time of the Buddha. The fact that Sona and Uttara chose this discourse to convert the inhabitants of Suvannabhumi indicates that they were facing a well-informed public, familiar with the views of Brahmanism [early brahmin caste leaning Hinduism] that were refuted by the Buddha in this discourse. There can be no doubt that only Indian colonizers, not the Mon people of Burma, would have been able to follow an analysis of Indian philosophy as profound as the Brahmajala Sutra.

• Read more on the history of Buddhism in Burma
• A Burmese outline from the Mahavamsa
• Christians call Life of St. Issa a Biblical "hoax"