Tushita takes its name from tushti, contentment, and the etymology is doctrinally exact. It is the fourth of the six sense-sphere heavens, well below the grandest of them, and the tradition's descriptions dwell not on its splendor, though it has the standard celestial furniture, but on the temper of its inhabitants: they are satisfied, delighting in what they have rather than reaching for more. That temper is why the heaven matters.
In Buddhist cosmology the higher sense-sphere heavens are morally hazardous precisely because of their pleasures; gods there are described as intoxicated, heedless, playing until their merit runs dry. Tushita sits at the sweet point where reward has not yet curdled into distraction, and the tradition made it, accordingly, the bodhisattva's address. It is also, in narrative terms, a working heaven: the texts show its residents attending to the Dharma, and later devotional literature pictures Maitreya preaching there in a jeweled pavilion to assemblies awaiting the far future with him. Rebirth in Tushita became a live aspiration across Buddhist Asia, championed in East Asia as a nearer and homelier goal than the Pure Land of Amitabha: not an exit from samsara but excellent seats within it, in the company of the one who will teach the way out next.