Butterlamps!

[kris]

I am just wondering, in this modern day, it is not easy to get butterlamps, so my question is, can candles give the same results? Further to that question, nowadays, many people has chosen to use electric candles in the house because of safety reasons. So, can electric candles achieve the same results as the butterlamps?

I do hope so..

[psylotripitaka]

Kris, you are offering any kind of light, even objects that are refracting light. Consider the following holy words from Panchen Lama Losang Chokyi Gyaltsen in Lama Chopa:

"The playful light of the sun and the moon, glittering jewels, and a vast array of lamps, dispelling the darkness of the three thousand worlds"

Dharma itself is the playful light of the sun and moon, glittering jewels, and a vast array of lamps dispelling the darkness of the three thousand worlds. Therefore, the most precious light offering is putting effort every day into cultivating Dharma wisdom, especially meditating on emptiness.

[DharmaSpace]

Thank you Chokyi Dorje for the clarification.

Some of the modern things like electric lights is for safety as well, so that is good to know that items that refract light is also considered items of offerings too.

[Midakpa]

This is another story of a sincere offering that resulted in endless merit. The story is called "Nanda's Lamp Offering":

While the Buddha was residing at the Jetavana Monastery in Sravasti, tens of thousands of people would come everyday to listen to the Dharma. They would bring along with them all sorts of clothing and food to offer to the sangha. There was a poor, lonesome woman named Nanda who frequently came to listen to the Buddha's teachings. She was saddened when she saw the king, his minister, and the rich all make such fine offerings, and she knew that she would never be able to do the same. "How can a poor person like me, having to beg for every single meal, have anything to offer to the Buddha?

Then she recollected a saying she had heard, "If you wish to know the causes set up in your previous lives, you only need look at the results in your present life. Who is to blame for Nanda's desperate situation? Nanda, who thoroughly understood this lesson of the Dharma, knew that she could alter her grinding poverty only through making offerings and giving alms. She also realised that with wisdom, she could find a way to accumulate merit and attain liberation from suffering.

The next day, Nanda was very happy because she received an old piece of cloth while begging. She traded the cloth for a copper piece and bought an oil lamp to make an offering of light to the Buddha.

Nanda's wish to make an offering to the Buddha was realised when she lit the lamp and placed it before the Buddha. As she joined her palms and prostrated herself in front of the Buddha, she pronounced these words with utmost sincerity, "May the brightness of this lamp rid me of the ignorance which has been with me for many lives, may this light eradicate my bad karma, and provide me with great wisdom. Lord Buddha, please bless me with your compassion!"

Numerous lamps were laid in front of the Buddha by the many people praying for their own futures. Before dawn the next day, Maudgalyayana went to check the lamps. He found the lamps offered by the king and ministers were dim and dying out. The lamp from Nanda, however, was glowing extraordinarily brightly and the wick seemed unused. After daybreak, Maudgalyayana began to snuff out the lamps with a fan. While the other lamps died out, Maudgalyayana could not put out Nanda's lamp, no matter how he tried. Puzzled, he rushed to the Buddha for an answer. The Buddha explained, "Not only can Nanda's lamp not be put out by your fan, even if you were to splash it with all the water from the four great seas or blow at it with great gusts of wind, it would never be extinguished. This is because the owner of the lamp offered it with bodhi mind. Maudgalyayana, if one offers with arrogance or in an attempt to attract fame, the merit it creates is bound to be minimal. Regardless of how many material things one offers, offerings made with a self-serving attitude can only create limited merit."

At that time, Nanda again came to pay homage to the Buddha. The Buddha kindly stretched out his hand and gently touched her head as he prophesized, "In a future asamkhya kalpa, you will become a buddha by the name of Bright Lantern and will be honoured with ten different buddha titles." Nanda then renounced her household life and joined the sangha as a bhikshuni.

When the many devotees who were present heard what the Buddha had just said, they joyfully vowed to uphold the teachings and to be generous in almsgiving, thus lighting up bodhi lamps within themselves in offering to the Buddha.
(from Venerable Master Hsing Yun, "Traveling to the Other Shore")

[eyesoftara]

Light is an antidote of darkness. Our very root cause of suffering is our ignorance of the ultimate truth and that results in the karma to ripen and attachment to the self. This cause us to remain in the uncontrolled cyclic existence of samsara. By cutting this ignorance ie through eliminating this ignorance, we gain wisdom. This wisdom is the wisdom of non self and phenomena. The clarity is the seeing of this non self and phenomena is the Liberation and Omniscience.
Hence, offerings of light acts as direct cause of accelerating of Wisdom. All the benefit mentioned are a variety of this Wisdom. Cause is similar to Effect.

Certainly. If one do not know the content and the ingredients of a medicine that does not mean that the medicine does not have effect. Further as we have not attained omniscience or the truth of phenomena we are always ignorance in the sense we are not 100% clear of what we are doing, even if we have a PHD, it does not matter as a cause is still a cause and ignorance is assumed, the law of cause and effect still works, lighting a light and offering it to the 3 Jewels will still create the cause for Wisdom or Enlightenment.

[angelica]

We make offering to Buddha to gain merits. We need our merits to support our spiritual practice. Without the merits, we might not even have chance to be close to a dharma center or to hear Buddha teachings or a healthy body to do our practice.

Light offering is a very simple act yet powerful, provided we set the correct motivation for our offering.

Thank you Midakpa and Pinecone for sharing beautiful stories on light offering.

[eyesoftara]

We make offering to Buddha to gain merits. We need our merits to support our spiritual practice. Without the merits, we might not even have chance to be close to a dharma center or to hear Buddha teachings or a healthy body to do our practice.

Light offering is a very simple act yet powerful, provided we set the correct motivation for our offering.

Thank you Midakpa and Pinecone for sharing beautiful stories on light offering.

Offering a light and offering it to the 3 Jewels increase the 2 accumulations of merits and wisdom. Light is associated to wisdom and that is clear and any offerings with the correct motivations to the3 Jewels accumulate merits. Further, it purifies our miserliness and selfishness as light also cause money and resources that is grasp at by our selfish mind. So to give is a way to be more selfless and to give to the 3 Jewels is infinitely more beneficial to the giver.