As the Buddha was passing He said…
Be a lamp unto Yourself
As the Buddha was dying,
Ananda asked
… who would be their teacher after death?
He replied to his disciple –
“Be lamps unto yourselves.
Be refuges unto yourselves.
Take yourself no external refuge.
Hold fast to the truth as a lamp.
Hold fast to the truth as a refuge.
Look not for a refuge in anyone besides yourselves.
And those, Ananda, who either now or after I am dead,
Shall be a lamp unto themselves,
Shall betake themselves as no external refuge,
But holding fast to the truth as their lamp,
Holding fast to the truth as their refuge,
Shall not look for refuge to anyone else besides themselves,
It is they who shall reach to the very topmost height;
But they must be anxious to learn.”
Source: Facebook post
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As humans, we want to be happy, and free from misery. The Four Immeasurables –
May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness
May all sentient beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering
May all sentient beings never be parted from happiness free of suffering
May all sentient beings abide in equanimity free of bias, attachment and aversion
In the verses above, the Buddha is advising to rely on the spirit and meaning of the teaching which is that the lamp mentioned here is the truth as taught by Buddha. The teacher may be like a lamp but the lamp/truth is not the personality of the teacher or the teacher per se. But rather, we should rely on wisdom attained not on mundane interpretation or on judgmental perception.
If we are happy, we thus can expand this happiness to others. If we are miserable, by the same virtue we expand this misery to others.Therefore, everything is in our mind, as the saying goes, what we think we become. Therefore, we should first orientate our mind towards the positive and hold on to the ultimate truth taught by the Buddha and lamas, take refuge in that and not so much as taking refuge in the person of the teacher.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this with us. I believe what is written here is very true. That we should always follow our Guru, listening to the advices from him, unless something else is being given to us.
I believe that we should just continue with what is already given to us before our teacher’s passing and hold onto the instructions as it would benefit us most. It is not because that we would not want to learn more, but instead is that Guru devotion that we have, believing that our Guru would have the best installed for us.
To me, what Buddha taught when He was passing, was we should take the responsibility for ourselves, be the one who guide ourselves, not rely on others. Because when we rely on others, we actually put the blame, put the responsibility on others and we will never care enough for our own things, our own life. Even when we found a Guru and learn from the Guru, the outer Guru eventually is bring the Buddha nature out within us and get to find our own inner Guru. We have to walk the path ourselves no matter how.
From what I understand from this teaching is that when the Guru has given you so much wealth of knowledge and teachings for many years, it is time to practice and be the light, be the giver, be the teachings you receive and that true inner Guru inside you will rise if one practices what they learnt. It is like what Rinpoche have told us many times before… don’t always just seek the light, we can also be the light 🙂
The Guru is a guide to show us our inner true nature of compassion and wisdom… before we get there we need to learn, so we learn from a qualified Guru obviously and not to get this all mixed up with being “attached” to the teacher to a point where by you become dependent, jealous and selfish where by you think the Guru is only for you and your benefit, and some even think and treat the Guru like an object to be possessed. Then it defeats the purpose of everything taught and learnt in Dharma.
A real teacher will always make you do the opposite and make you grow independently when you are able. Bottom line is just trust the Guru.
We take responsibilities of ourselves. If we want happiness we need to work for it and earn it. The truth is within us therefore happiness is also within us. Let us be truthful with ourselves that we can take charge of our lives and we can learn to be happy. If we can have happiness for ourselves than we can bring happiness to others.
Upon receiving every teaching , be it from the Guru or dharma books, reflect deeply. If I feel uncomfortable or resistance , I need to do more contemplation and confront the resistance.
I need to swallow the bitter medicine. There is no other way to get well ! Dharma is our ultimate refuge.
This poem is deep yet profound. I understand it to be that we are the light for ourselves. We are to trust our own thoughts and find our inner teacher because we have it in ourselves. Just have to find it. When we have our outer guru, he is there to guide and teach us to find out inner guru. How we find our inner guru is to practice what has been taught by our guru. The more we practice, the more we are sure of ourselves.
The truth will never lie when we are practicing compassion. We need to continue seeking the truth and create the environment for ourselves to practice so that the truth will come out. Everyone is born the same but it is because of circumstances that made us who we are today. So we must willing to unlearn what we have learnt and relearn so that we become better and return to our roots. Let ourselves be our own guiding light!
Instead of always relying or seeking truth out there we should always rely on ourselves, to study, to contemplate and to act. If we find that we’re lacking in knowledge than it is okay to seek external help. And once we have this knowledge we must act in consistency to our knowledge, ie that is our practice. Our perspectives are our lamp to the outside world. Slowly our internal lamp will guide us to the truth, we are our own teacher, then we can help others to gain the same realization. 🙂
Aptly put, Liberation is in the palm of one’s hands. You control how you want to lead you life to your ultimate goal. What determines our next rebirth? This is determined by our KARMA. So dont let others hold you back by repeating your past. You write the rest of your future with story to glory. You are in control!
Very short poem but very deep for me. How I understand this is that it is through our own determination and efforts that we can have some kind of enlightenment. If we are surrounded by the most precious lamas or teachings but we do not put any effort to practise what we have learnt and do our ‘homework’ then we will not get anywhere. No one can practise for us and no one can enlighten us we must collect the merits and do the work first.
Future tense is senseless. Wishes for the future is unsure. Be what you wish now. No one controls your body, speech and mind. So you don’t need to transform your body speech and mind in the future. Fortitude and tenacity is achievable now. if you don’t achieve it-then it is a choice. Pick the right choices. In real dharma with real dharma friends and real dharma work and real dharma environment, there is no future tense. We may not even be alive tomorrow. It is now. Your body, speech and mind is controlled by you..so don’t blame a third person that is fictitious. Don’t make your teacher a liar and Buddha not real..be here and now. Have the qualities now. You are in control of yourself. Your teacher is not a liar and there is a Buddha…Sarva Mangalam….Tsem Rinpoche
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for this posting. I like this poem posted here. If I may, I would just like to give my take on this, and what I learn from this simple, short but profound poem.
From the title, it states that we should ‘light up our own lamp’ – meaning, we should be the ones who dispels our own ignorance, who learns up and acquires the knowledge, so like a lamp, would give us light and direction when it is dark.
“Be lamps unto yourself, be refuges unto yourself”. To me, like what I said before this shows that we have to be the ones ourselves who should lead ourselves out of the darkness, which like light, will give us clarity (of the mind), and make us shine. We are able to see the truth, if we chose to have our direction shown through the light expelled through the lamp. In the lamrim, a lamp is portrayed to be the one that dispels our ignorance, gives us clarity, wisdom and like a flickering light in a very dark room, shows us the truth through what we are to see and learn from that flickering light. The light can lead us out of the darkness (of ignorance, uncertainty, the unknown), so be lamps unto yourself, is for us to find our own way to gain the wisdom.
“Be refuges unto yourself” – not sure what it means, but I’m thinking is that we take refuge in the 3 jewels – the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. So it is saying that we can be all three, and take on the path which would lead us to being our own lamps. The Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha is in us.
“Take yourself no external refuge” – Don’t rely, take refuge and put all your energies onto worldy attachments and externalities, for they come and go. Externalities are what our minds portray it to be. If we keep searching for the answers outside of us, we won’t be able to find the lamp and wisdom within us. Happiness, peace and bliss does not rely on what is outside of us, it comes from within. And to be in that state, we have to find and activate the Buddha potential in us.
“Hold fast to the truth as a lamp. Hold fast to the truth as a refuge”. Hold on tightly to this truth, for it would be your light to guide you out of samsara. Take refuge in this truth that represents the Buddha Dharma and Sangha.
Those who does this, will achieve results, powerful results in their spiiritual jouney.
They must be ever willing to learn, however. If there is no anxiousness in one wanting to learn, they will not realise the potential of the Dharma, they will not push themselves to achieve their potentials. The Dharma is about mind transformation, and boy, is it one of the most difficult things to do because you are trying to “know and go against the NO” that Chogyam Trunga Rinpoche highligted in his poem (Tsem Rinpoche gave a great commentary on it here – http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/how-to-know-no.html), to go against all that you think is right. Most importantly, you have to be willing to learn and practise with an open mind, for when you are eager to want to know more, you will get results eventually. Our teachers could be teaching us perfect Dharma, but if we are not anxious to learn, there will be no way to reach the “very topmost height”.
I end with Steve Job’s quote: “stay hungry, stay foolish” – because that way, you are always willing and anxious to go a step further, in surviving samsara – http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/inspiration-worthy-words/find-what-you-love-by-steve-jobs.html
Thank you Rinpoche, for this post.
Love,
Carmen.
Everyone has a Buddha in ourselves, when we only seek for dharma teaching but just for the sake of learning and not practicing it, even with full knowledge of dharma, we will not going to get anywhere.
Dharma practice is not about how much dharma we have learned, but it is how much we have put into practice, from all the teaching that our guru gave and if we contemplate and apply it, we can be our own guru and even spread the knowledge we have to others.
A Spiritual guide will only assist us by providing whatever necessary tool for us to practice dharma, whether we went into wrong path, understanding the wrong message, received the unnecessary confusing teaching from others, etc, a spiritual guide will step in and guide us back to the right path, but guiding is guiding, whether to follow and walk back to the right path or not will be fully depend on ourselves, because if we do not help ourselves, no one else can.
The outer guru will lead us to find our inner guru, so, when? where? and how to find our inner guru? it all depend on ourselves.
We must be our own lamp and be able to lead ourselves to overcome any difficulty stages and to continue our spiritual path.
What a wonderful thing you have written Albert. Thank you.
A lamp shines out of its own essence and not from the essence of others. A lamp illuminates its own way even as it shines the way for the rest. This is always important to remember because too often we depend on others and external forces for solutions.
A lamp must be aware of its own ability to shine.