The Bodhisattava vow is to free all Beings. Presumably, there will come a time when all the infinite beings have become Bodhisattavas or Buddhas… all excepting One - the last unliberated Being.
So, who will that be?
(Asking for a friend 
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Who knows?
Anyway, realistically this question if all beings will be liberated or not had been left unanswered in EBT. It’s along the lines of will one third of samsara be empty or not.
The reason is that if one thinks some beings will never be liberated, there can be low self esteem people who identify themselves as part of that group, and thus not make effort.
If one thinks all beings will be liberated, then there can be some beings who think since it’s guaranteed safety eventually, why make the effort now?
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In my mind, the direction of the ratio between liberated and unliberated beings would be the opposite of all but one liberated. In other words, the Dhamma taught by the Buddha will eventually be forgotten and lost and no beings would be liberated until another Buddha arises. If all beings are already liberated, there would be no need for a new Buddha to arise. So the last being should be the unliberated being.
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So, I have two possible candidates for the last unliberated being.
Firstly, Mahabrahma. This being is the first to appear in the newly formed world (DN 27). He has the least merit and the greatest ignorance and he thinks that all beings who appear later are his creation.
Secondly, Mara (SN 4). His entire role is to keep beings trapped in Samsara. Stands to reason that he would be the one to resist liberation the most!
Hmmm… now that I come to think of it, perhaps the question of the last unliberated being is vital to the future success of the entire Bodhisattava project!
Beings who become Buddhas or Arahants, few and far between though they may be, transcend existence completely. That leaves a growing number of Bodhisattavas bent on liberating the shrinking numbers of unenlightened beings… till the very last one - which could likely be Mara?.
Because the infinite number of Bodhisattavas are bound by their vow to liberate even this last unenlightened being, they are effectively bound to stay in Samsara till Mara relents and chooses enlightenment for himself.
But would he?
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I don’t know but could you tell them to turn off the nimitta when they leave?
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Monggallana was a former Mara, so such question as the last being is meaningless. Over long enough timespan, we change roles so much that all of us can take turns to become mara, and some of us got enlightened already, some still here. And so on.
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It’s a sentiment. The infinite sentient beings aren’t literally all liberated. This is pointed out explicitly in Mahayana texts like the Diamond Sutra to guard against this kind of literalism.
It’s like weeding. I sometimes go out and weed by hand in front of my place. Neighbors often think I’m foolish. I should spray the weeds with herbicide, etc. The reason I do it not because I think I’m going to get rid of all the weeds but because I’m a sedentary middle aged man in need of exercise. Kneeling is actually quite the workout.
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Sounds like the eleventh avyākata to me.
(Tell your friend we are instructed to put aside such questions. 
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Just some random thoughts…
We are taught that there is no initial cause. Which has always made me think of the quote, “everything that has a beginning has an end.” If there is no beginning is there no end? Which is an eternalist line of thought, which is outside of our goal as students of the Buddha.
The idea of “the last one to close the door” or the last being to reach enlightenment implies an end. An oddly optimistic view of an annihilationist line of thought, which again is outside of our goal as students of the Buddha.
Also we are taught that beings spontaneously arise. So it would seem that there are always going to be more beings.
The question around do all beings reach enlightenment, I think if answered as yes it would have left people with less of a sense of urgency. If you want someone to work towards something that is very important and you tell them it’s inevitably going to get done, why would they bother working on it right now. So as a teacher it would be wise to just dismiss the question entirely.
Fun conversation for sure, it really is a good reminder of how large the forest is and how few leaves the Buddha held in his hand.
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Oh no… the vow is not meant to be approached as attainable. One actualizes the vow with every moment of dedicated practice. No one actually expects a time when no beings are left to save. If we are to go by the traditional belief, it takes endless kalpas for each bodhisattva to get their turn at being a Buddha, and in these endless kalpas, more karma is produced by beings, more rebirths, etc.
It’s not like the Highlander…“There can be only one” 
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So, how do Mahāyānists explain Kṣitigarbha’s vow? Is he essentially vowing to never attain?
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Interested in this statement; do you have a sutta reference for this? Do you mean beings are reborn and reborn or that a being can spontaneously arise from nothing? That would suggest there is a “start” to an individual living being…
Does Discourse have a prize for comment of the year?
This one has my vote lol
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Hmmm…in terms of past life chains, given the fact that enlightenment is possible and there’s no beginning discernable, I don’t think that the beginningless past life chain cannot end.
A past life chain is more of a conceptual thing. What exists are the aggregates which arises and ceases, moment by moment or at the very least life after life.
This is referring to mode of rebirth which is not womb born, moisture born or egg born. Those beings who spontaneously get reborn still have infinite past life chains.
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I think this question is like “If there’s no self to my khandas, don’t I exist?”
Many Mahāyāna ideas share the vocabulary with the Nikāyas and subvert them in curious ways, like EBTs do with Brahmanical / Vedic ideas.
And then they build up on this new vocabulary…
Thus it also requires a certain amount of patience, which sometimes EBT students will find lacking when their familiar terminology is thrown upside down! 
I will try to explain to the best of my understanding…
Hmm, I think it helps to distinguish not yet attaining Buddhahood from remaining an ordinary, unliberated being. These aren’t equivalent in Mahāyāna.
Kṣitigarbha is described as a tenth-ground bodhisattva in chapter 12. Within many Mahāyāna path systems, a bodhisattva at that level has already overcome the afflictions binding beings to saṃsāra, although further obscurations remain before complete Buddhahood. So “bound to stay in saṃsāra” can be misleading if we imagine someone trapped there in the same way as ourselves.
But I don’t think “it’s just a sentiment” quite does justice to the text either. Chapter 4 actually contrasts two kings: one vows to become a Buddha first, so that he can help everyone else; the other, Kṣitigarbha, vows to bring suffering beings across first.
So there is a real textual basis for the question. The answers depend partly on which exegetical approach we’re using.
One approach treats the vow as an inexhaustible commitment: wherever there are suffering beings, one continues helping. It can be actualized repeatedly without ever becoming a completed undertaking. That doesn’t necessarily supply a prediction about a final date when saṃsāra will be empty.
I would also qualify the appeal to the Diamond Sūtra. It doesn’t simply say “these beings will never actually be liberated.” It enjoins their liberation while rejecting the grasping at a self, a being, or an accomplishment involved. “No being is liberated” is about how liberation is understood, rather than straightforwardly denying that anyone’s suffering ends.
There is even a rather interesting interpretation from Mengcan: Kṣitigarbha has already become a Buddha, and the hells are already empty; through realization of emptiness, rather than because their last inhabitant has left! He explicitly introduces this as his own interpretation, with Kṣitigarbha continuing to appear as a bodhisattva for beings’ benefit.
So yes, a straightforward reading can leave Buddhahood indefinitely deferred. But that needn’t mean indefinitely deferred insight or freedom from affliction. And the “already a Buddha” interpretation answers the question differently again.
Butbyes, in a sense, we can understand that Kṣitigarbha will never attain Buddhahood, since no one ever attains Buddhahood, just as Tathagata can not be found to be real or actual in the Nikāyas (Yamaka Sutta).
There’s the conventional qualifications of end of suffering, or helping other beings, even as these are illusory, empty, and conventional designations.
EBTs focus on the liberation of self even though there is no self. Mahāyāna focuses on the liberation of others even though there’s no self or other.
EBTs focus on the end of Samsara. Mahāyāna explains the end of Samsara by revealing that Samsara was an illusion that never existed in the first place. ◇
I don’t think we need to make these into one perfectly consistent cosmic timetable. There are different texts and traditions doing somewhat different things here.
◇: Broad brushstrokes.
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Well, I can’t speak for Mahayanists, and Ksitigarbha’s vow is not necessarily relevant to all of them. It’s a specific sutra and a specific character that some embrace more than others.
I believe the vow is “until hell is empty, I will not attain Buddhahood”, right? What the bodhisattva vows is to be forever at the service of others, not caring about their own liberation, not caring about the highest possible attainment for themselves.. The vow is about the work that is to be done, not about the attainment or reward after completing it.
Something like that, I imagine.
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Might be relevant, in AN 10.95, the wandered Uttiya asks:
“But when the worthy Gotama teaches in this way, is the whole world saved, or half, or a third?”
Ven. Ānanda gives the simile:
Suppose there was a king’s frontier citadel with fortified embankments, ramparts, and arches, and a single gate. And it has a gatekeeper who is astute, competent, and intelligent.
He keeps strangers out and lets known people in. As he walks around the patrol path, he doesn’t see a hole or cleft in the wall, not even one big enough for a cat to slip out. He doesn’t know how many creatures enter or leave the citadel. But he does know that whatever sizable creatures enter or leave the citadel, all of them do so via this gate.
In the same way, it’s not the Realized One’s concern whether the whole world is saved by this, or half, or a third.
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There is actually an angle to this question that isn’t specific to bodhisattva vows, which is the end of the world in Buddhist mythology. When the world is destroyed, all the sentient beings up to the Pure Abodes (if I remember correctly) have already been reborn into higher realms through meditative attainments. The implication may well be that because the lower realms have been emptied of beings, they naturally disintegrate and are destroyed. There’s no more karma being made that creates them.
The formation of the lowers realms again occurs when the karma of all those sentient beings who were born in the higher realms expires and they begin to fall to the lower realms again. Which, indeed, begins with the first Brahma god, who regards himself as the creator of all other beings who fall into his realm. And so on.
So, it maybe does stand to reason that King Brahma may be the last being to be “liberated.” And I suppose we could imagine bodhisattvas teaching everyone how to be reborn in the higher realms. But the myth describing this must predate bodhisattva thought - they are never mentioned in it that I know of.
But I would guess that Kṣitigarbha would eventually fulfill his vow given that bit of Buddhist cosmology.
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So, how do Mahāyānists explain Kṣitigarbha’s vow? Is he essentially vowing to never attain?
I can’t speak for all traditions, but when I first came to Buddhism the center in my area was a Dharma Drum Mountain group from Chan Master Sheng Yen’s lineage, and the teacher there said this about the Bodhisattva path: “We all exit together when the last being is ready.”
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See, this is exactly what triggered my question.
Sure, there are an infinity of beings. And some of those beings become Arahants- how many does not matter - they disappear from Samsara forever and are free of Suffering.
My issue is with those who vow to remain.
Since Bodhisattavas don’t exit Samsara till the last being is ready, if all goes according to plan there will come a time when everyone’s exit will hinge on that last one being’s choice.
Now Mara’s (by which I mean whoever might be Mara at that time) entire role is to prevent beings from getting fully enlightened and exiting Samsara.
So the full enlightenment/ exit of all those infinite Bodhisattavas is essentially dependent on Mara’s choice to let go (or not). They are trapped by their own vows.
If I were Mara right now, I couldn’t think of a more diabolical plan! 
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