Offering of Tsok and Butter Lamps
We offer tsok and butterlamps every day of the year during our daily pujas and during retreats.
On the 10th and 25th days of the Lunar calendar (Guru Rinpoche Day and Dakini Day, respectively) we perform Lake Born Vajra, Thrőma Nagmo or Khandro Thukthik puja.
On the 30th (new moon day), the 8th (waxing quarter day) and the 15th (full moon day) we do Buddha Puja and Shower of Blessings
On all other days we alternate the following Dudjom Tersar pujas: Lake Born Vajra, Thrőma Nagmo, Buddha Puja and Shower of Blessings, Vajrakilaya, Khandro Thukthik and Dorje Drolod. We are also doing a concise Chime Sokthik (Amitayus) puja daily for our teachers’ long lives.
You can sponsor any day that may be personally meaningful or a particular puja(s) that you have a special connection with and we will dedicate your offering when we do that practice. We are happy to read a short dedication, your name and/or the name(s) of your loved one(s) during puja. We can also send a card to the person or family for whom you may be dedicating sponsorship (please let us know one address where we can send a card if you wish us to do so).
Here is a PDF of the monthly practice days going up to Losar (Tibetan New Year) in February 2012.
The Offering of Tsok
“Tsok is a gathering together of many elements; it is a gathering of yogis and yoginis who share pure samaya; it is a gathering of the samaya substances of food and drink representing skillful means and wisdom; it is a gathering of the wisdom-being guests, such as the Three Roots (lama, yidam, and dakini); and it is a gathering for the accumulation of merit and wisdom. According to Vajrayana, tsok is the most profound method of accumulating merit and wisdom, its special qualities that make one moment of tsok practice equal to eons of confessing downfalls in our samaya; of liberating obstacles, and of fulfilling the wisdom minds of the lama, yidams, dakinis and dharmapalas.
Through the offering of tsok, the six guests are pleased; the root and lineage lamas are pleased by our understanding of the perfect view; the yidams are pleased by our samadhi; the dakinis and dharmapalas are pleased by pure samaya; the practitioners are pleased by the enjoyable qualities of food and drink; the invited guests, the outer and inner local protectors who have taken a vow to protect the dharma, are pleased by the remainder offering; the dakinis of the twenty-one and thirty-two sacred places are pleased by the singing of the Vajra song.”
-Lama Tharchin Rinpoche
You are welcome to make a tsok offering for one of our retreats or for our daily tsoks.
The Offering of Butter Lamps
“Offering butter lamps is the most powerful offering because their light symbolizes wisdom. Just as a lamp dispels darkness, offering light from a butter lamp represents removing the darkness of ignorance in order to attain Buddha’s luminous clear wisdom. The lamp offering is a sense offering to the Buddha’s eyes. Because Buddha’s eyes are wisdom eyes, they do not have the extremes of clarity or non-clarity. Our ordinary eyes, however, are obscured by the darkness of the two defilements – gross afflictive emotional defilements and subtle habitual defilements. While the Buddha does not have desire for offerings, we make offerings for the purpose of our own accumulation of merit and wisdom. Through the power of this accumulation, we can remove the cataracts of our ignorance eyes in order to gain Buddha’s supreme luminous wisdom eyes.
"When we offer light, the results are the realization of Clear Light wisdom phenomena in this life; the clarification of dualistic mind and the dispersal of confusion and realization of Clear Light in the bardo; and the increase of wisdom in each lifetime until one has reached enlightenment.
Traditionally, butter lamps are also offered as a dedication to the dead in order to guide them through the bardo by wisdom light. We can pray as well that this light guide all beings of the six realms, removing their obscurations so that they may awaken to their true wisdom nature. With genuine faith and devotion, visualize that with your offerings, countless offering goddesses offer immeasurable light to all enlightened beings. You may recite a Butter Lamp Offering Prayer from the Collection of Offering Prayers.”
-Lama Tharchin Rinpoche
Butterlamps are lit during each session of our group retreats and each day during daily puja. In one month we offer literally thousands of butterlamps. Lamps can be sponsored on any day of the year and bring particular benefit lit for those who have passed away by connecting them to wisdom energy.
Sponsorship
Tsok and/or butterlamps can be sponsored in the following ways:
- click on the tsok and butterlamp paypal buttons below
- e-mail the office if we have your credit card on file
- mail a check made out to Vajrayana Foundation and to 2013 Eureka Canyon Road, Watsonville, CA 95076 (please put puja sponsorship in memo section)
- Sponsor Guru Rinpoche/Dakini Day tsok - $108
- Sponsor 200 butterlamps on Guru Riinpoche/Dakini Day - $50
- Sponsor 8th day, full or new moon tsok - $50
- Sponsor daily tsok - $25
- Sponsor 100 butter lamps any day - $25
- Sponsor any amount for tsok or butterlamps
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Tsok and Lamps
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Tue Feb 7, 2012
See Full Schedule
