1000 Butter Lamps

Funeral Prayers

I realize that it is the first time since my Mom’s funeral that I’ve been involved in saying prayers for someone else who´s died. On Monday we went to light 1000 butter lamps for the Father of a colleague. It was truly a beautiful affair…

The first temple we went to, we couldn’t find the caretaker! So we just walked around the outside, turning the prayer wheels (always clockwise) to reduce our impurities, and release good karma into the world..

So we went to a second temple, which is right next to the market, so I’ve been curious about it ever since I arrived. The monk let us in, and the two men proceeded with the task of melting boxes of shortening to oil, that we poured into the little lamps.
The women pressed cotton wicks into each of the lamps, and arranged them in rows on the central altar.

The monk pouring oil into the lamps.

Apparently you can´t breathe on the lamps, or your impurity will go into the flame.

By the time we finally finished filling and lighting the lamps, it was completely dark (almost 3 hours later).

We then went into the temple, and they did a few kneeling-bow prayers, and we were done. So far, Buddhism seems to be have very action-oriented forms of prayer. (singing, dancing, lighting candles..)