Butter Lamp Offering House and Prayer Resources

Butter lamps are an unsurpassed offering, but they can be pesky, smoky, and dangerous. Thus, the butter lamp offering house (chos me khang) came into being. The one pictured above, which is at Dga'ru dGon pa nunnery, is a model of its type.

Ever try to buy butterlamps? I don't mean one, or two, or three, but ever try to get them in quantity? Silly little brass items, simple as can be, pennies for the pound in India, but just try to get them anywhere else. Most places in Tibet have a small chest of 108 lamps always available for offering purposes, but this custom has yet to reach the West. We should fix that.

Above: Interior of butter lamp house.

Chagdud Tulku was a great believer in butterlamp offerings, and gave a little teaching on this subject available by clicking here.

Tsem Tulku also has a video teaching on the same subject (in flawless English), available by clicking here.

Tsem Tulku discusses Atisha's Light Offering Prayer in the above video, and you can get a PDF of that by clicking here.

For English, I personally like this one.

For Tibetan, the above Marme Monlam is also quite beautiful.