Butter candle - the most powerful offering

Benefits of offering butter candles:

Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche - a Tibetan Dharma teacher of the Nyingma Vajrayana School, once taught, “Of all the methods of accumulating merit through offering, the butter candle offering is just right after the offering Tsok ”. The light of a butter candle is the most powerful offering, dispelling darkness and lighting Buddha's wisdom in the darkness of ignorance. Offering candles is offering a way of seeing to Buddha's eyes and because the Buddha's eyes are the wisdom eye: they do not separate light or darkness; which is something that our naked eyes cannot do. Because our naked eyes have been obscured by the darkness of gross impurities (afflictions, ego) and subtle impurities (dharma attachment).

Although in Buddhism, there is no need for offerings, we can offer butter candles to accumulate merit and wisdom for ourselves. This accumulation will help us eliminate the imperfections of our eyes and attain the Buddha's wisdom.

Offering light, or more specifically, butter candles, will give practitioners the realization of the true seeing, eliminate the discriminating mind, confusion and enhance wisdom in life. All those things will lead us to enlightenment.

In addition, butter candles are also used to light the wisdom to make offerings and guide the deceased in the bardo realm, an intermediate, transitional, or liminal state between death and rebirth. This light is also prayed to enlighten all beings in the six realms, purify all their karma and awaken their own true wisdom.

When offering butter candles, people should have sincere faith and devotion, so the light will reach all the Buddha and Bodhisattvas.

The benefit of offering light is stated by Buddha Shakyamuni

01. Become the lamp of the Dharma realm;

02. Have ability to see the invisible realm in the body;

03. Have ability to see past, present, future of all beings;

04. Achieve the wisdom of understanding the Dharma of good ways and the evil ways

05. Exclusion of mind clinging to form;

06. Always live in the light of wisdom;

07. Able to rebirth in form of human body or deities;

08. Achieve rich life;

09. Achieve liberation;

10. Achieve the enlightenment.

The meaning of the butter candle offering:

Offering light (candle butter) is a means of eliminating the darkness of ignorance, lighting up wisdom and wisdom. We offer with the desire that that intense light will enlighten the realms of thaaos and bardo, eliminate the suffering of all beings and attain the noble wisdom to understand that happiness is good karma of action, speech and thought. On the other hand, we make offerings so that the secret light of awareness will appear in the minds of all beings and dispel the darkness of ignorance and obstruction of self-opinionated seeing.

The pure objects that we should offer are the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma and Sangha); The Three Faculties – (Masters, Deities and Dakini); and the guardians.

The offering must be made very carefully because the merit created depends on purity, sincerity, visualization and the process of preparing items. If every process is carried out mindfully, merit will surely grow up. So even if you only offer a little lamp, a candle light but with all of your sincere, pure mind, you still receive great merit. Buddha told Sāriputta that in the "Benefits of the lamp offering" that this action goes beyond the calculations of all the Shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas, the merit is uncountable.

There is a short story like this:

When Buddha was alive, there was a very poor old woman seeing King Ajatashatru offered many barrels of oil to light lamps to Buddha at Jetavana Vihara. This woman wanted to make an offering like this but she could not afford it. She asked someone for two coins and went to the store to buy oil.

The seller asked her, "If you don’t have enough money to buy food and drink. Why don't you use those coins to buy food for yourself in steading of buying oil?" The old lady replied, "People say that it is very difficult to meet Buddha. Now I am so lucky to live at the same moment with Buddha. Though I can’t afford to make a huge offer like the King, I still want to make offerings to create virtue for the next life. Feeling touched by the sincere heart of the old lady, the owner added five oil coins to her.

The old lady brought the oil lamp before the Buddha and made a vow: "I have nothing to offer to the Buddha, but this small lamp. I hope with this offering, may in the latter I shall have wisdom, may I shall purify all obstacles and lead them to liberation. ”

That night, a miracle happened. Some King’s lamps were turned off, some of them were still burning. But the old lady's lamp was the brightest without decreasing oil until the morning. When Venerable Maudgalyāyana collected the lamps and saw a burning lamp still had full of oil. He decided to blow it off as it was morning already, but he could not turn off the light of the lamp. Though he tried so hard, it still shined. Buddha, after witnessing everything from the beginning, said, "Maudgalyāyana, do you want to turn off that lamp? You cannot do it. You cannot even move it. Even if you pour water from four ocean to this lamp, it still won't turn off. Do you know why? Because this lamp was lit up to offer with all devotion, and with a pure mind. It was that motive that made it immensely merit. ”