English
Having renounced the world and become a monk, with immeasurable praise, immeasurable sight, and immeasurable wisdom, by offering a lamp to the Sugata's stupa, one will become immeasurably wise. Like a lamp, it illuminates all directions. With a great lamp, illuminating the stupa of the supreme being, Shakyamuni, with pure eyes, having attained the dust-free, stainless, and uncontaminated Bodhi, like a lamp, it illuminates all ten directions. By offering a lamp to the Sugata's stupa, one will possess the wisdom of liberation, possess the ten powers, and reach the other shore of the unmixed Dharma. One will become a Sugata with all-seeing eyes. Thus it is said, these verses are the practice of the Lamp Offering Sutra. Furthermore, in the Arya Avalokiteshvara Sutra, it is said: If one offers a single lamp to the Great Buddha, from here until the peak of existence, the Buddha-field will be filled with gold. Such glory cannot be exhausted. By offering a lamp to the Bhagavan's stupa, his body will not become ugly. The excellent form will be firm and beautiful, like a measuring tool. Having obtained light, he will travel throughout the world. If hundreds of thousands of kotis of Buddha-fields were filled with mustard seeds, they could be counted, measured, and spoken of. Offering a single lamp to the Sugata is not like that. Thus it is said. If you think that offering to the Sugata's stupa is difficult to obtain, even if it is difficult to obtain a stupa containing the entire body relics of the Sugata, the stupa of the Sugata's relics is the statue and stupa in which the Buddha's relics reside. The profound dharani mantras are the relics of the Sugata's dharani mantras. Because all stupas and statues contain dharani, they are Sugata stupas. Even if the supports of body, speech, and mind are not in the village, if one offers with mental visualization to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, it is said that there is no difference in benefit from actually offering in front of them. Why is that? Because all the Buddhas, six times day and night, with their Buddha-eyes, look at all sentient beings, each individually, thinking about which sentient being should be benefited. Therefore, by offering a lamp, they will surely know and see.