The Lamp Offering House
Offering butter lamps is a very powerful offering in Buddhist tradition because the light of butter lamps symbolizes wisdom. Just as a lamp dispels darkness, lighting a butter lamp generates merit to dispel the darkness of ignorance, and gives rise to Buddha’s illuminating clear light wisdom. The merit of offering butter lamps in Pemaköd is magnified greatly by the power of this sacred land. – Tulku Orgyen P’huntsok Rinpoche
We are building a Lamp Offering House adjacent to the main temple, as a special dedicated location for people to offer butter lamps in greater numbers.
In the old temple, most of the time butter lamp offerings were made inside the temple, and only when people wished to offer a greater number of butter lamps did they do so outside or around the temple. However, making a lot of butter lamp offerings inside the temple can present difficulties in keeping the altar tidy, and also the oily soot from offering a large amount of butter lamps can damage delicate thangkas, texts, and other sacred items located inside the new temple. As a result of these challenges, most temples have a separate space for making large number of butter lamp offerings.
Shrine and practitioners making butterlamps in current gompa
In the new Zangdokpalri temple at Yoldong, Pemaköd, we will have some large butter lamps for inside the temple on the altar, but we will build a separate “Lamp Offering House” to accommodate larger number of butter lamp offerings.
The “Lamp Offering House” will be right next to the temple. Inside, there will be a three-foot high stage, on top of which will be three tiers with space for three hundred butter lamps. The walls of the Lamp Offering House, as well as the base of the stage, will be made of concrete, and the tiers on which the butter lamps will be placed will be of flat metal.
Please help us generate merit by building the Lamp Offering House, and offering the Light of Buddha’s Wisdom to the world. For the benefit of all beings!
May all beings benefit!