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Buddha arises. In the past there were several Buddhas. And it is said that in the future there will be at least one.

My question is under what conditions does a Samyaksambuddha arise?

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    For how the/a Buddha possible would arise for one individual it's good to go after the protections. Best wishes and encouragements that many meet him.
    – user11235
    Feb 26, 2020 at 22:57

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My question is under what conditions Buddha arises?

There's no set patterns. For example Buddha Gotama came during a relatively uneventful period where human life span was within normal range. However, for the future Buddha Metteyya to arise, per DN 26, life on earth must undergo some very drastic "downswing", and then some recovery, and finally thru some great upswing before He'll appear.

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To be buddha merely means to be awake: to open your eyes and see the true nature of reality. That happens more often than anyone realizes, to people one might never hear about or expect.

To be a teacher — one with open eyes who goes beyond the karma of others as well as his own — is rare. I suspect that the world has to be locked in dukkha, a generalized state of dissolute and decayed dissatisfaction, in order to effectively pull people to the path without pre-existing structures. No one tears down an old temple to build a new unless the old one is close to rubble and ruin. But that's more an intuition than anything else.

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  • While the answer is good, I have a problem with the first sentence which is why I've marked this down. The Buddha is not simply one who is enlightened. That is an Arhat or a Pratyekabuddha. The question I believe is asking about a Samyaksambuddha who is a world teacher.
    – Yeshe Tenley
    Feb 27, 2020 at 20:06
  • @YesheTenley: Oh, yeah, I understand the distinction you're making. Personally I prefer to blur that distinction, because (given the nature of ego) a lot of early practitioners set their sights on samyaksambuddha and dismiss the others. I prefer to treat world-teaching as just something a buddha might do, not something special, important, or significant in its own right.
    – Ted Wrigley
    Feb 27, 2020 at 20:26
  • It is an interesting question and I think the traditions differ on this, but for Tibetan Gelug-pa their is a definite difference in the attainment between an Arhat, a Pratyekabuddha and a Samyaksambuddha. It isn't just that the latter is a world teacher. And it isn't just that a Samyaksambuddha attains this realization on their own and may very well have been an Arhat in a previous birth.
    – Yeshe Tenley
    Feb 27, 2020 at 20:39
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    All of this is detailed in "Buddhism: One Teacher, Many Traditions" btw which does a fantastic job of outlining the differences between the traditions in an unbiased way and with respect for all of them.
    – Yeshe Tenley
    Feb 27, 2020 at 20:41

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