In past years, Rinpoche has led a group of his students on three lamp offering pilgrimages to Borobudur in Indonesia, Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, and Tso Pema in India.

In terms of accumulating merit through the practice of giving, it is said that offering butter lamps to enlightened beings is second only to the practice of tsog offerings.

Offering light is also a means of dispelling our own ignorance, giving rise to clarity and wisdom.

Why do we need to accumulate merit?  In terms of our spiritual goal, to reach enlightenment we need to fly with the two wings of wisdom and merit.  Even now on the spiritual path, we need immense merit to overcome obstacles and to have conducive circumstances.  Even on a worldly level, we need merit to have success in our undertakings, business, long life, health, wealth and so on. Offering lamps is one of the best ways to increase our merit and wisdom quickly.

If one offers even one lamp properly, then the merit is immense and as Buddha said to Shariputra in the Sutra of the Benefits of Offering Lamps that:

Such merit created is beyond the reckoning of all the Shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas; the merit received is incalculable and immeasurable, and can only be known by the Buddha, Thus Gone One.

Maitreya Buddha

In the Tibetan Blessed Maitreya Sutra, it says that those who offer one thousand light offerings will meet Maitreya Buddha in their future lives and become his students who will listen to the Buddha’s first turning of the wheel of dharma.

In general, all goodness in samsara and nirvana comes from making offerings to the Triple Gem, but specifically, different kinds of offerings bring you different benefits. Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, the fourth of the thousand buddhas of this fortunate eon, whose holy mind was enriched with the ten powers, announced in the Tune of Brahma Sutra Clarifying Karma that making light offerings brings you ten benefits:

1. You become like a light in the world.
2. You achieve (when born human) the clairvoyance of the pure flesh eye.
3. You achieve the devas’ eye.
4. You receive the wisdom of knowing what is virtue and what is non-virtue.
5. You are able to eliminate the darkness of ignorance, the concept of inherent existence.
6. You receive the illumination of wisdom; even in samsara you never experience darkness.
7. You receive much wealth and enjoyment.
8. You are reborn in the deva or human realm.
9. You quickly become liberated.
10. You quickly attain enlightenment.