Traditional way of Offering Butter Lamp

Butter Lamp

A Guiding Light

Butter Lamp is a guiding light to find enlightenment. Light stands for the freedom of all conscious beings from the obscurity of obliviousness. In this manner, the act of lighting butter lamps acts as a symbolic way of dispensing with ambiguity and obliviousness from this World. It will also help the mind to focus on the eternal path of salvation. It is taken into consideration that the lamp offerings are associated with the transitions of life and also represent the wisdom of awakened ones and compassion. With each lamp offering, we celebrate the enlightenment of Buddha and also bring good fortune. The offerings of Butter lamps are practiced continuously throughout the year to emanate the prayers and aspirations of pilgrims. As the guiding light, Butter Lamp's offering is related to good fortune. It is deeply believed that offering butter lamps and praying at the same time help us to bring less misery or sufferings, more prominent satisfaction at the time of sickness, misfortune, and death. We offer butter lamps and prayer for the good health of our family members and our friends also on special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries and for their better career.

Offering Butter Lamp:

 

When we offer butter lamp we should maintain certain things on our minds.

First, we need to clean the surrounding areas properly and make sure that the entire area is neat and clean.

Second, we need to check the lamp are clean or not if not then we have to clean them properly using a clean piece of cloth to use them.

Third, we need to insert or put cotton wicks properly in the lamp before pouring the hot butter into the lamps.

Fourth, while pouring the butter in the lamp we have to make sure that we don't pour butter in the cotton wick as if we do so then the cotton wick gets heavy and it might not stay straight in a proper way in the lamp. So we need to carefully pour the hot butter into the lamp before it gets cold and becomes solid. We need to place all 108 lamps on a flat surface before we start lighting the lamp.

We need to clean ourselves by washing our hands and also our feet. Then we wear the mask to prevent the breath from contaminating the purity of the butter lamp.

The entire process is done in such a meditative way and also at the same time chanting the mantras (OM VAJRA ALOKE AH HUM EMA HO), meant to draw one in both physically and spiritually. 

It is essential to practice the offering of butter lamps. As Buddhists, we should at least make 100,000 butter lamp offerings in our lifetime to achieve the path of the sutra and possess pure heavenly eyes and clear wisdom in the future.

How to prepare a Butter Lamp? 

To prepare or to make a butter lamp we need few things such as a chunk of butter and a medium-sized

the container where we can put the butter into the container and then place it on top of the stove then we heat the container till the butter melts. After the butter is melted properly we then pour it on the other container like a kettle. By using the kettle, it is easy to pour the butter into the lamps. We also need cotton to make wick which is easily available in medical stores in the market. After that, we need to roll the stretch of the cotton fiber gently and then roll the fiber by using the hands, or else we can also use a piece of straw to roll the fiber properly. And last but not least we need a lamp (brass or copper) where we can pour the butter and place the wick to complete the butter lamp.

As  Lord Buddha said, "If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path."