Lamp Offering - Buddhist Publications | Fo Guang Shan International Translation Center

Offering lamps at Buddhist temples and stupas is a common practice. The Flower Adornment Sutra says,

The lamp of wisdom can break through all forms of darkness.

As such, lamps represent the light of wisdom that pierces through the darkness of ignorance. This empowers sentient beings encumbered by confusion.

The Buddhist practice of offering lamps originates from the
actions of a poor girl named Nanda. Her story can be read in The Prophecy of King Ajatasatru Becoming a Buddha Sutra, which tells us that the merit for offering a lamp can ever lead one to become a Buddha.

The purpose of a lamp offering is to light the lamp of the mind. What is the lamp of the mind? Wisdom, intelligence, loving-kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity, and a sense of shame are all lights for the mind. When the lamp is lit, our Buddha nature, brilliance, and purity all appear.

Merit does not depend on the size of the offering, but rather on the depth of sincerity with which a gift is given.

Everyone can become a lamp that can illuminate the hearts of others. If you are knowledgeable, you can become a lamp of knowledge. If you are deeply ethical, you can become a lamp of morality. If you are especially capable, you can become a lamp of strength and perseverance. If you are deeply caring, you can become a lamp of loving-kindness and compassion. When you shine light in these ways, others will grow closer to you. We should all strive to become lamps for our families, our communities, and the whole world. Through our actions, society will gradually become brighter and more peaceful.

The Different Karmic Effects Spoken to Elder Shoujia Sutra says there are ten merits of offering lamps:

First, they bring light to the world.
Second, no matter where one is reborn, one’s eyes will be undamaged.
Third, one will gain heavenly vision.
Fourth, one will gain wholesome wisdom and the ability to differentiate between wholesome and unwholesome phenomena.
Fifth, the great darkness will be dispelled.
Sixth, one will gain illuminated wisdom.
Seventh, one will receive great merit.
Eighth, one will never be reborn in a realm of darkness.
Ninth, at the end of one’s life, one will reborn in a heavenly realm.
Tenth, one will quickly realize nirvana.

From Ten Paths to Happiness, written by Venerable Master Hsing Yun.

More Featured Articles

The Way to Practice

If your mind is in balance, what need is there to work at morality? If your behavior is correct, what use is meditation to you? If you understand mercy, then you will naturally care for your parents. If you understand faithful conduct, then all of society will be in order.—Platform Read more

Observe the Way through Living Simply

In the early days of Buddhism, how did monastics observe the Way and live their lives? As the daily lives of these monastics were not one of material things, emotional ties, or sensory pleasures, they led a lives of few material things and cool emotional ties. The world within their Read more

Repentance

It is only through loving-kindness and compassion that we can find room in our hearts to forgive others. It is only through our willingness to let go of resentment that we can find a way to magnanimity. Read more

The Mind is the Source of Unwholesomeness

The Buddha often explained emptiness and impermanence by getting people to think about how phenomena arise, change, and decline. Read more

Trees Have Roots; Waters Have Sources

Trees have their roots, and people have their origins. As human beings, we must endeavor to increase joy in the world for the sake of everyone in the world, and we also must ensure that life will sprout flowers and bear fruits as strong and sturdy as the peach. “Mother” Read more

I Am Not a Monk “Sponging Off” Buddhism (II)

It is enough for most monks to only have the ability to chant and teach the Dharma, and of course I too can chant sutras and teach the Dharma. But only being this kind of monk was not something I was willing to do. I wanted to become a monk Read more

Transformed by the Precepts

The Buddhist precepts are here to protect us from wrongdoing, lead us away from what is bad, and towards what is good. Vinaya Master Daoxuan of the Tang dynasty composed the Simplified and Amended Handbook of the Four-Part Vinaya [Sifenlü Shanfan Buque Xingshi Chao], in which he analyzed the precepts Read more

To Forbear a Moment’s Anger

"To bear disgrace and insult" is the most important virtue a person can possibly cultivate, because the ability to forbear is enormously powerful, since a moment of anger can destroy an entire lifetime of merits. By restraining our emotions, we have a better chance of avoiding confrontation and gaining control Read more

Greed: The Cause of Suffering

Though the worlds that we see are fundamentally a product of our own minds, they usually do not appear this way to us. Like images in an intense dream, our perceptions appear to be wholly real to us, and not to have been generated by our own mental activity. For Read more

Speaking with Kind Words

If we want to understand what the Dharma teaches us about building affinity and living in harmony with others, we must first understand the four great all-embracing virtues. The Buddha teaches that for us to realize our true capacity of connecting with and serving our fellow citizens, we have to Read more

How To Change Destiny

What we often care most for in life is the self, and the most important aspect of self is none other than destiny. During one's lifetime, destiny changes frequently because of circumstances that arise. Because of a person, an event, a word, a dollar, or even a thought, entire lives Read more

A Good Reputation

We should always try to see the good in others, not the bad. On the samsaric level of this saha world alone, back-biting and faultfinding are known by most people to be totally counter-productive. Not only does faultfinding produce nothing but anger and mistrust, but the effects of negative speech Read more