Which future Buddha is currently residing in Tushita heaven awaiting rebirth? Maitreya is the answer.
Maitreya is regarded in Buddhist tradition as the future Buddha who will appear in the human world after the teachings of Gautama Buddha have disappeared. Before that future birth, he resides in Tuṣita, or Tushita, one of the six deva heavens in the Buddhist desire realm. There he is described as a bodhisattva teaching and preparing for his final birth and awakening.
The tradition parallels the story of Gautama Buddha, who is said to have lived in Tushita as the bodhisattva Śvetaketu before descending to Earth as Siddhartha Gautama. Maitreya’s role is therefore not simply that of a distant prophecy: he is understood as the present regent of the Buddha’s Dharma in Tushita.
Maitreya devotion became especially influential in China, Korea, and Japan. Practitioners sought rebirth in Tushita’s Inner Court so they could meet Maitreya, hear his teachings, and eventually accompany him when he descends. He is sometimes confused with Budai, the cheerful “Laughing Buddha”; Budai is a later Chinese figure traditionally identified as an incarnation of Maitreya, not the bodhisattva’s heavenly form itself.